Data Breaker

A jester-masked, berobed figure stands behind an imposing bank of
keyboards before a stylish, boho crowd at the Hideout bar. There he
generates unsettling waves of electronic horror—but it’s subtle
Lovecraftian horror rather than blatant shock tactics. The haunting,
sometimes-antic miasma created by this audio wizard seems absurdly
incongruous in this chic setting, but one feels privileged to catch a
rare appearance by Jabon, aka studio engineer Scott
Colburn.

A longtime key figure in Seattle’s underground-music scene, Colburn
is best known for producing albums by Arcade Fire, Animal
Collective, Sun City Girls, and Mudhoney, among many
others. But since 1985, Colburn’s been recording solo pieces on the
sly. This year, he’s decided to take his special, rarely heard music to
the live realm (many Jabon tracks and concerts can be heard at
www.scottcolburn.com/jabon).

A Black Flag–saluting punk in the ’80s, Colburn had an
epiphany while listening to the Residents‘ Mark of the
Mole. A music-appreciation course at Indiana University hipped him
to Stockhausen, Charles Ives, and Morton
Subotnick, and immersion in mid-’80s tape-trading culture led to
him discovering subversives like Controlled Bleeding,
Negativland, and Whitehouse. “I figured I could do that
kind of music, too. Fortunately, I had access to a studio in which to
do tape-loop experiments. Very quickly after that, the convergence of
instrumental Black Flag (and [Greg] Ginn’s instrumental trio
Gone) and Chrome started to take hold. So from there on
out, my tapes were made of ‘rock’ trio improvisation, weird
Residents-esque pop songs, intercut comedy, and general madness.”

Jabon flourished from 1985 to 1995, but then Colburn moved to
Seattle and put the project on hiatus for about 14 years in order to
focus on recording with Climax Golden Twins, Wizard
Prison, and Sun City Girls guitarist Sir Richard Bishop,
while also burgeoning as a producer working out of his Gravelvoice
Studios.

Colburn disagrees with my “unsettling” adjective above, but he
admits, “I think [my tracks] might be challenging in the mood
department. I can’t make happy music, but I can make funny
music, so I think you need to approach it with a sense of humor and it
will make more sense. I like to call my project Dark Ambient Avant
Garde Disco Comedy. On any night, there’s gonna be someone who is
stoned out of their mind and will get into the drone. There will also
be someone else who had a bad day and will appreciate the darkness.
Someone else will just enjoy the wacky pop ditties and laugh. I’m
trying to appeal to the full range of human emotions.”

The Residents’ multimedia concerts inspired Jabon to follow suit.
“In Wizard Prison, I didn’t want to play a show unless it would be an
event,” Colburn says. “We wanted to put something together that was
unlike anything anyone had seen before. So we got a 9-foot-high and
12-foot-wide aluminum cage draped with a white scrim. We made
Brakhage-like avant-garde films to project behind us so we were in
silhouette. And we’re wizards, see… in prison! And the music is the
alchemy that allows our escape.

“For Jabon, I can play with or without films, with or without
special effects, with any multitude of masks and disguises. The best
shows will be the ones where I can pull off the carnival. The Hideout
was close to that. If you watch the video from that show, several
people just walked right up to me and took pictures with their cell
phones. Probably to send to their friends to say, ‘Look at this shit I
saw tonight!'”

As for the upcoming Cal Anderson gig, Jabon’s music seems like the
antithesis of Saturday-afternoon-in-the-park entertainment. “I like the
idea that it’s gonna be sunny and hot out there, and I’m going to get
onstage in a wizard costume and make some sort of freak sounds,”
Colburn says. “It just doesn’t make any sense, and that’s a good
thing.

“The first set will concentrate on all my goofy pop numbers, the
second set will concentrate on ambient improv. So in a way, the sunny
day in the park is the perfect wrong venue. I think it would be fun to
play a Laundromat, a parking garage, a beach, a forest, or the light
rail!”

Sounds Outside: Jabon, Figeater, Syncopated Taint Horn Quartet,
and others perform Sat Aug 15, Cal Anderson Park, 1–8 pm, free,
all ages. Jabon performs at 2 and 3:30 pm.