Fringe Character, Foreign Goods

press release:

Playing "keep-on-chasin’-dreams" music and led by producer and multi-instrumentalist Turrnt Vonnegut, Fringe Character is an expanding nebula of like-minded creators that resonates a universal chord rich in the elements of rhythm, melody, and harmony. Performances are live with a 10 piece ensemble. 

Milwaukee based Foreign Goods is not fusion, where the whole is less than the sum of its parts. This is something different, a Black American Music that obliterates linear time, where jazz, hip hop, rock, R&B, gospel exist not on an historical continuum but as co-equals in a continuous present. We can think of each of these genres as a “foreign good”, a property from elsewhere, something that is moveable. That all of these begin as “black” music forces the understanding that American Music is Black American Music. With this understanding comes the deeper insight, that “foreign goods”, that property from elsewhere, chattel that may be animate or inanimate – this is the core of the American Experience, our Original Sin, the heart of our darkness, and the place where we might attempt our redemption.