"I love playing in Fantomas, which is very strict in terms of composition"
About this Quote
There is a small rebellion tucked inside Trevor Dunn's praise: he "loves" Fantomas precisely because it won't let him coast. For a bassist with deep roots in improvisation and genre-hopping, calling a band "very strict in terms of composition" isn't a complaint, it's an endorsement of constraint as an aesthetic high. Fantomas has always traded on controlled chaos, but Dunn's line pulls the curtain back: the mayhem is engineered.
The intent reads like a corrective to the lazy myth that extreme, abrasive, or experimental music is just freeform noise. Dunn is signaling craft, not just attitude. In a Mike Patton-led universe where the audience expects whiplash shifts and cartoon violence, "strict" means every stop-start, every jagged meter change, every sudden silence is authored. The subtext is professional pride: this is a band where you don't hide behind vibe. You execute.
Context matters here because Fantomas arrived in an era when "alt" credibility often came from sounding untrained on purpose. Dunn's sentence draws a line between sloppiness and complexity. He's also quietly describing the pleasure of being a specialist inside a machine: the thrill of precision under pressure, where the bass isn't just low-end support but part of the compositional architecture.
"Love" and "strict" land together like a paradox that only musicians fully appreciate. The discipline is the freedom; the rules are what let the weirdness hit with maximum force.
The intent reads like a corrective to the lazy myth that extreme, abrasive, or experimental music is just freeform noise. Dunn is signaling craft, not just attitude. In a Mike Patton-led universe where the audience expects whiplash shifts and cartoon violence, "strict" means every stop-start, every jagged meter change, every sudden silence is authored. The subtext is professional pride: this is a band where you don't hide behind vibe. You execute.
Context matters here because Fantomas arrived in an era when "alt" credibility often came from sounding untrained on purpose. Dunn's sentence draws a line between sloppiness and complexity. He's also quietly describing the pleasure of being a specialist inside a machine: the thrill of precision under pressure, where the bass isn't just low-end support but part of the compositional architecture.
"Love" and "strict" land together like a paradox that only musicians fully appreciate. The discipline is the freedom; the rules are what let the weirdness hit with maximum force.
Quote Details
| Topic | Music |
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