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Three-Layer Cake: Sounds The Color Of Grounds

By Mark Corroto
June 29, 2025
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Three-Layer Cake: Sounds The Color Of Grounds

The trio of

Mike Watt

bass

" data-original-title="" title="">Mike Watt,

Brandon Seabrook

guitar
b.1984

" data-original-title="" title="">Brandon Seabrook and

" data-original-title="" title="">Mike Pride began as a pandemic-era experiment, exchanging music files remotely to create Stove Top (RareNoise, 2021). Now, as Three-Layer Cake, they return with Sounds The Color Of Grounds, a record that reveals a fully realized and cohesive jazz-punk—or perhaps punk-jazz—ensemble.

Watt, etched into punk rock's Mt. Rushmore, co-founded the Minutemen with D. Boon in 1980, and later formed fIREHOSE in 1986 following Boon's tragic death. Never confined by genre, Watt's musical range spans from The Stooges to

John Coltrane

saxophone
1926 - 1967

" data-original-title="" title="">John Coltrane. Guitarist and banjoist Seabrook, who grew up listening to the Minutemen, shares that same DIY ethos. His own sonic chaos is on full display in his recent solo outing Object Of Unknown Function (Pyroclastic, 2024). Providing the connective tissue is drummer Pride, a versatile force whose pulse anchors groups led by the likes of

Anthony Braxton

woodwinds
b.1945

" data-original-title="" title="">Anthony Braxton,

Jon Irabagon

saxophone

" data-original-title="" title="">Jon Irabagon and

Peter Evans

trumpet

" data-original-title="" title="">Peter Evans.

The band's eclectic sound calls back to the Minutemen's expansive aesthetic. The album opens with "Deliverdance," where Seabrook's frenzied banjo and Pride's hyperactive drumming set the stage for Watt's spoken-word musings. His meditative prose—self- described as "semi-sonnets"—appear on three tracks and were originally written for visual artist Raymond Pettibon.

Beyond the breakneck pace of "The Hasta Cloth," the trio explores more introspective terrain. "From Couplets To Corpuscles" offers a brooding meditation, while "What Was Cut From The Negative Space" staggers like a reggae-soaked blues hallucination.

The trio's remote collaboration lends itself to layered, reactive compositions. Seabrook weaves guitars and samples into dense tapestries; Pride augments his drum kit with marimba, gongs and other percussive textures. On "The Lonely Sail," saxophonist

Jonathan Moritz

saxophone, tenor
b.1977

" data-original-title="" title="">Jonathan Moritz joins the fray, answering Watt's recitations with spectral phrasing as Seabrook's sci-fi fragments and Pride's shimmering percussion swirl around him.

Three layers quickly become four, five, six... And yet, despite the complex assembly, the result is unified and immediate—a testament to the trio's shared vision and boundary-defying instincts.

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Track Listing

Deliverdance; From Couplets To Corpuscles; The Hasta Cloth; What Was Cut From The Negative Space; Occluded Ostracized and Onanistic; The Part You Kept Art; Tchotchkes; The Lonely Sail (featuring Jonathan Moritz); Lickspittle Spatter.

Personnel

Mike Watt

bass

Three-Layer Cake

band / ensemble / orchestra

Brandon Seabrook

guitar

Mike Pride

drums

Additional Instrumentation

Mike Watt: vocals; Brandon Seabrook: banjo, tape; Mike Pride: marimba, gongs.

Album information

Title: Sounds The Color Of Grounds | Year Released: 2025 | Record Label: Otherly Love Records

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