jaimie branch
Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die ((world war))
take over the world
Now Available
jaimie branch - Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die ((world war))
Photo by Ben Semisch, courtesy of Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts)
IARC0066
jaimie branch
Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die ((world war))
Releases August 25, 2023
Available on LP/CD/Digital via our Bandcamp page
In July of 2022, just one month before jaimie branch’s death sent shockwaves around the world, the trumpet player and composer was in Chicago at International Anthem (IARC) studios putting finishing touches on an album. It was a suite of music she had composed and then recorded with her flagship ensemble, Fly or Die, over the course of a residency at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, Nebraska. In her wake, the album was near complete, with only mixing tweaks, final titles, and artwork to be fully realized. In the months following, her family (led by sister Kate Branch), her band (Jason Ajemian, Lester St. Louis, and ChadTaylor), and her collaborators at IARC (engineers Dave Vettraino and David Allen, comrades Alejandro Ayala and Scott McNiece) banded together to gather memories, texts, emails, photographs, artwork and fragments belonging to jaimie to light the path forward. The goal was always to do what jaimie would have done. Packaged in stunning artwork by John Herndon, Damon Locks, and branch herself, Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly orDie ((world war)) is jaimie’s final album with the quartet.
Notes
jaimie branch– trumpet, voice, keyboard, percussion, happy apple
Lester St. Louis– cello, voice, flute, marimba, keyboard
Jason Ajemian– double bass, electric bass, voice, marimba
Chad Taylor– drums, mbira, timpani, bells, marimba
- with special guests-
Nick Broste- trombone (on track 5 & 6)
Rob Frye- flute (track 5), bass clarinet (track5,6&7)
Akenya Seymour- voice (track 5)
Daniel Villarreal- conga and percussion (track2,5,6&7)
Kuma Dog- voice (track 5)
All compositions by jaimie branch; except "and kuma walks” composed by jaimie branch, Lester St.Louis, Jason Ajemian & Chad Taylor; and “the mountain” composed by Curt Kirkwood (originally performed by The Meat Puppets as “Comin’ Down”).
Recorded at Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, NE, April 25-29, 2022.
Edits, overdubs and mixing at International Anthem Studios in Chicago, IL, July 18-23, 2022.
Additional mixing at International Anthem Studios, August & December 2022.
Recorded by: Dave Vettraino
Edited by: jaimie branch & Dave Vettraino
Mixed by: Dave Vettraino & David Allen
Mastered by: David Allen
Cover Art by: jaimie branch & John Herndon
Cover Design by: Damon Locks
Photography by: Ben Semisch courtesy of Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts
Layout & Insert Design by: Craig Hansen
About jaimie branch
First and foremost, jaimie “Breezy” branch (intentionally punctuated as all-lower-case) was a trumpet player. Whether it was the blast of her horn’s long steady full-bodied tone, or the expressiveness she’d add with plunger mutes and harmonizing looped effects, branch played the trumpet like she was born to, reasserting her love for and fascination with the instrument each and every time she brought it to her lips. If you need one reason to know why jaimie branch was a special musical force, start there. Yet that was, of course, not the only reason. branch was also an incredibly gifted improviser and bandleader, composer and singer-songwriter, musicker and DIY activist. And it was the thoughtfulness and hell-or-high-water energy that she applied in combining all these missions which defined jaimie branch as an artist, the endeavor she put into both her creative and community work, and the unbendable stand she made at the intersection of the two. Truly powerful shit, if you saw it in the right light.