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Anna Butterss: Mighty Vertebrate review – jazz meets post-rock on shape-shifting delight


With guests including Tortoise’s Jeff Parker, the LA bassist’s second solo album is cerebral, groovy and beyond categorisation

Australian-born Anna Butterss is a working LA bassist, who’s added low end to artists such as Jason Isbell, Phoebe Bridgers and Jenny Lewis ( opening for Harry Styles, no less). They are really an upright and electric jazz player, collaborating with searching artists such as guitarist Jeff Parker (Tortoise, Isotope 217°) and drummer Makaya McCraven; they compose, too. Following on from Butterss’s appearance on LA quintet SML ’s LP earlier this year, Mighty Vertebrate is their second solo outing overall – a sparkling, shape-shifting record, created as a series of playful compositional challenges, that defies categorisation.

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Photo of Anna Butterss

Anna Butterss

Photo of Mighty Vertebrate

Mighty Vertebrate