Sean Noonan’s “Brewed by Noon”

Since the release of his previous Songlines record Stories to Tell in early 2007, Sean Noonan has been busy stirring up the ingredients of his unique “wandering folk music” project, and here’s the new brew. Grandiose, intoxicating, and sui generis, Boxing Dreams is a wildly ambitious and idiosyncratic concept album that blends passionate vocals and time-honored lyrics from Ireland, Mali and Senegal, raw power-jamming jazz/rock guitars, shape-shifting improv viola, dense soundscapes, funked or punked up drum and bass grooves and complex, dancing polyrhythms.

Brewed by Noon is a fermentation of wandering folk music from the New York progressive jazz scene. Sean Noonan’s goal is to adapt folklore into a modern jazz context, merging storytelling and folk music from the Bardic and Griot traditions. Like old wine in new bottles, his mission is to ultimately understand and preserve these ancient traditions by re-interpreting folklore from a modern perspective.