Experimental classical and electronic muses meet with a touch of weird, avant-garde jazz.
With: Lawrence D. “Butch” Morris, Pete Cosey, Mazz Swift, Melvin Gibbs, Okkyung Lee, Vijay Iyer, & Lewis “Flip” Barnes.

“Of course an eclectic lineup such as this requires strong direction and, this time around, the whip comes from guest conductor Butch Morris. His style of conducting is not to lead a group through a written score, but to react to the ongoing group improvisation and pulls what he feels are the right sounds and elements out of the musicians. His touch ranges from gentle string interludes that organically meld into fractured ambient washes to deep bass grooves and long guitar lines that produce soaring, sustained aches or disturbing subterranean agitations. The music is generally abstract, but there is an element of excitement as its form grows and the pieces sprout new limbs. “The Rites” is Burnt Sugar’s fifth album since forming in 1999 and there are several more on the way. Collect ”em all, kids.”
Tom Bojko: The Japan Times

“As with their live appearance in London recently, there”s a leviathan-like sense of a large mass gathering momentum. A sweating, straining, feeling alternative to the non-corporeal floodtide of electronica, Greg Tate”s groove-based, improvising, conductioned, yelling, tender, big (massive) band make an unassailable argument for the organic, the electric. Burnt Sugar are a mobile unit, heavy but limber as a panther – seemingly able to tackle any subject at will. The last hundred years is a smorgasbord for this groups delectation; join the feast.”
Colin Buttimer of the BBC online