The Outskirts came together as a working band during bassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten’s three-year stint as a Chicagoan from 2005-2008. They played regularly at all of the working venues for improvised music in Chicago at that time, including The Hungry Brain, The Velvet Lounge, The Hideout, and Elastic. They even made a live recording in April 2009 that they were eager to release. But unfortunately, the multi-track audio files were lost in a hard drive mishap, leaving only a barely usable rough mix. And since Flaten had left Chicago by then, it also spelled the end of the group. He had recently joined Rempis’ better-known outfit The Rempis Percussion Quartet just as he left town, a band that featured Outskirts drummer Frank Rosaly alongside Tim Daisy. Their newfound geographic challenges meant that having two similar bands that could only work on tour was impractical. So for the time being, The Outskirts melted away. These three continued many years of work together though, in both The Rempis Percussion Quartet and Flaten’s Chicago Sextet, as well as in ad hoc groupings, and bands that featured two of out three, such as Rempis and Rosaly’s eponymous duo, and Flaten’s Young Mothers.
In late 2023 Rempis and Rosaly discussed putting a new project together for a tour in 2025. While brainstorming some ideas, Rosaly brought up The Outskirts as a band worth revisiting. Flaten quickly signed on to the idea, and they organized a European tour in March 2025 (partly as a celebration of Rempis’ 50th birthday that same month). For the occasion, Rempis decided to indulge an idea he’d been kicking around for awhile. For the first time in many years, he brought in a set of material for the band to work with. This approach has been something he’d consciously rejected for a long time – the last groups he wrote for were The Engines, which disbanded in 2013, and The Chicago Reed Quartet which did so in 2014. Free improvisation has intentionally been the focal point of his career since that time, which is both a philosophical and political choice. After working in many tightly run composition-based bands early in his career, he eschewed that approach for years in an attempt to foster more egalitarian interactions in his bands, and to remove the burden of written material that so often feels coercive to improvisers. So finding him delve back into a set of original material again after so long feels like a special treat, particularly with two collaborators whose deep sensitivity allows the band to rethink typical modes of operation in a way that meshes with his long-term philosophical aims.
In this context, that becomes possible by using material that’s meant to be flexible and modular. Melodic lines, bass vamps, and grooves can be brought in together as a full composition, or as discreet components. And more importantly can be adjusted to fit the mood and trajectory of the surrounding improvisations. From one night to the next, a melody might shift from a barnburner to a ballad, or a simple bass line might become the basis for an extended sojourn, purely up to the choice of any of the musicians. Meanwhile, a set might start with one or all of the musicians bringing in composed material, or it might start wide open and find its way there. Or perhaps they never get into the material at all.
By the time the band hit the penultimate concert of their tour in Padova, Italy, they had enough experience of this approach under their belts to produce something truly exhilarating. Disc one of Orbital represents a rare achievement – a context in which the written material is actually subordinate to the group’s improvisations.
On disc two, we find a completely different approach though! At the start of their tour in Antwerp, Belgium, they enlisted a special guest – piano phenom Marta Warelis. Warelis has become a star of the European improvised music world over the last decade, working with a who’s who of the scene ranging from Dave Douglas, to Ab Baars, to Carlos Zingaro. Although this was Rempis’ first time throwing down with her, they’d known each other for years. And both Rosaly and Flaten had become regular collaborators of hers in Amsterdam, where she was a linchpin of the scene for years before relocating to Berlin in 2024. That first concert was gloves-off-improvised fire from the downbeat (so much so that they also invited her to join their Warsaw concert the following week). Both the Padova and Antwerp dates are released on this two-disc set in full, to showcase those disparate modes of working as an ensemble.
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Dave Rempis – alto/tenor saxophone
Ingebrigt Håker Flaten – bass
Frank Rosaly – drums
w/special guest Marta Warelis – piano (Disc Two)
Disc One recorded March 15th, 2025 at Teatro Torresino in Padova, Italy by Nicola Negri. All compositions by Dave Rempis
Disc Two recorded March 6th, 2025 at Rataplan in Antwerp, Belgium
by Koen Vandenhoudt
Mixed by Dave Zuchowski, mastered by Lasse Marha