(The) Scotch Broom Collective is an imaginary ensemble helmed (or once helmed) by Robert “Bob” Fay, whose real-world units have included Sebadoh, Somerville Players, Deluxx, Crush, Baby Jesus Burnout and so on.

Bob’s primary instrument is drums, but like his fellow American polymath Ben Vereen, Bob does not allow himself to be pigeon-holed. With Scotch Broom Collective he does it all, except perhaps for the tap dancing segments, which he has chosen to leave to others.

The material on this tape (as on Scotch Broom’s debut LP on UK’s Golden Lab Records) was recorded by a miscellany of outfits with which Bob has been involved, and includes players like Conrad Capistran, Chuck P. Elea, Mark Perretta, Stephen Mathewson, Jason Lowenstein, Eric Matthews, Manny Lander and Dan Ireton.

As you might expect, the tunes are varied-as-shit, lo-fi-as-fuck and random-as-hell.

Scotch Broom Ensemble’s sound is dedicated to the unbridled freedom of otherness. So the tunes range from aggressive pokes into the cage of the free jazz bear to raw electric guitar instrumentals to wailing collabs with the great Dredd Foole. There is no slack, no waiting, and the tape unspools like a slacker’s guide to the outer rim of the universe. It should probably be noted that the final Deluxx free form blowout on the tape was performed at the Paradise, opening for Sebadoh. Bob recalls, “The packed house didn’t know what to make of us…” What a bunch of goddamn squares.

Insects & Water started coming together just before the Plague Years began, when Ted Lee innocently asked Bob if there were more good Scotch Broom tapes around. Now, after five long years of digging we have the answer. A solid, multivalent earful of strange yet somehow familiar raunch epistemology, delivered to your head by machines of loving grace.

Perhaps we should all be asking better questions more frequently. Apparently they get results.

-Byron Coley, 2025

Scotch Broom Collective

Releases

Water & Insects