Merzbow, Mats Gustafsson, Thurston Moore, Balazs Pandi, Cuts of Guilt, Cuts Deeper

If you expect a pristine clarity, simplicity and quietude in the music you hear, you won't be getting it on the double CD or double LP Cuts of Guilt, Cuts Deeper (Rare Noise RNR052 and RNR052LP). In fact this music is the opposite, with nebulaic maelstroms of chaotic collage. complexity and cosmic noise. The quartet sees to it that all hell breaks loose, in very vivid ways. No wonder. Merzbow (aka Masami Akita) brings in his already dense concept of noise and power electronics. Added to it is the wind strength of Mats Gustafsson on saxes, clarinet and more power electronics. Then there's the very all-over guitar chaos of Thurston Moore, best known for his seminal work with Sonic Youth but also an avant garde artist in his own right (he shared a program with Cecil Taylor and they played some together, for example). Finally there is the bashing heavy rock complexities of drummer Balazs Pandi.

The two-CD or LP set gives us a long intertwined poetic essay in very dense noise. Generally those sounds are multi-dimensional, continuous and, with the exception of the third of four segments where things get relatively open and quieter, unrelenting.

You generally get a clear picture of who is doing what, except perhaps how much of the power electronics is Gustafsson and how much Merzbow. But the overall effect is endlessly dense.

Now maybe this is something you are going to be predisposed to like or hate based on where you already are in your listening. I would like to think though that any adventurous soul could come to appreciate the sounds very much. It has some very extreme guitar skronking, some very deeply chaotic electronic noise, some fine honk-scatter sax work, and very busy, heavy drumming.

Don't expect a Sonic Youth sort of thing, except a few minutes of the Sonics in their most extreme moments. Do expect the noisy chaos of Merzbow, augmented by three musicians who are most seriously on the same page here. It's exhilarating, extreme, to some it might be maddening at first, but in the end it is a fine, exemplary work of noise art.

I happen to find it a great listen and endlessly fascinating. Maybe you will, too? Open up and give this one a chance to work its magic.

The Spanish Donkey, Raoul, with Joe Morris, Jamie Saft, Mike Pride

The trio Spanish Donkey returns to us with a new outing called Raoul (RareNoise RNR054 & RNR054), available as CD or double LP.

It kicks out all the jams with a flourish, thanks to the free metal guitar of Joe Morris, the keyboard densities of Jamie Saft and the brash drumming excellence of Mike Pride.

This in a way is an all-star trio. Each player has that something special and they are determined here to make an album that is free, very dark-metal oriented but with the lucidity of outside jazz inventiveness.

Joe Morris cranks up his guitar and gives it spank and spunk with plenty of sustain and effects. Jamie Saft lays down intensely thick washes of keys that cover all the sonic and frequency possibilities for a heaviness born of a sure sense of sound sculpture. Mike Pride explodes with barrages of freedom appropriate to the heaviness of the music. He is the RIGHT drummer for this trio because he has all the energy, technique and stylistically informed originality going for this music.

Joe Morris shows us he can take his own open approach and make it densely raw and soulfully skronky in a post-Hendrix sort of maelstrom. It is the sort of performance any guitarist in the heavy zone needs to hear closely and learn from. But that's true of the trio as a whole.

This is extreme and extremely satisfying jazz metal with no pretense and pure commitment.

If you like things outside and heavy, this one will lift you up to a very high place. It is a monument in its own way. Everyone should hear it if they can deal with a boldly uncompromising excellence!

Last Exit, Iron Path, with Sonny Sharrock

Electric guitarist Sonny Sharrock was the prime moving force on his instrument during the first years of free-avant jazz and in the years to follow. No one came close to approaching him for energy and sound scatter excellence. He did not gain fame especially, but those who knew the music recognized him as the master of the guitar freedom he espoused.

When in the past phase of his career he turned to avant-free rock, there was nothing half-hearted or tentative about it. It was and is completely convincing. His recordings with various drummers, Elvin Jones, Ginger Baker and often with Bill Laswell on bass and Peter Brotzmann on reeds were seminal. As a member of Last Exit he excelled as well.

That group's only studio recording, Iron Path (ESP 4075), recorded in 1988, was an exceptional effort and its re-release this spring is a very welcome occasion.

The recording finds Sharrock, Brotzmann, and Laswell in tandem with drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson, who most certainly was a fundamental part of this band and comes through excellently here. The studio album has the hardness of the live recordings but a bit less of the brash assault and more compositional and ambient elements. That is not to say it is any less essential than the others, but that it is slightly different.

Sharrock sounds beautiful, Brotzmann fire-y, Laswell exceptionally primed and Jackson a controlled whirlwind of percussive strength. It is a tragedy that Sonny left this earth only three years later, just as he was on the verge of a stardom no one would have expected years before. And very sad too, that Jackson left us in 2013, far too early.

We can take solace in this excellent date. It was one of the conflagration's very best and sounds every bit as current today as it did back then. Viva Last Exit! Do not miss this one now while it is again available. It's a monumental outing!

Hugo Carvalhais, Grand Valis

Bassist-composer Hugo Carvalhais shows us some extraordinary versatility on the new music-free front with his recent offering, Grand Valis (Clean Feed 330). The ten-work quartet performance forms a "long meditative suite upon the world," as the liner notes state. This is a very attractive retro-futurist and futurist open-form kind of music, heightened by the compositional frameworks and the acute sensibilities and sound colors of the performers.

Hugo of course holds forth on the acoustic bass and does so with consistently interesting line weaving. Gabriel Pinto's organ-celeste and keyboard work often gives the music a distinctive kind of retro-out quality, sometimes hearkening back indirectly to early avant experimental music, even at times reminding me of the music of Henry Brant, if ever so obliquely and perhaps just in terms of a convergence. Dominique Pifarely on violin shows concert music training but like Carvalhais and Pinto, puts it all in the service of the improvisatory arts, and quite well at that. Finally there are electronic colorations by Jeremiah Cymerman and occasionally Hugo to further move the music into worldly-otherworldly realms.

There is excellent improvisational work from all the instrumentalists but too there is a conceptual fervor that comes out of Hugo Carvalhais' lively imagination.

All of this sets the music apart as exceptional, neither quite free jazz nor new music. It finds a space in between the two genres for something monumentally different yet somehow reflecting the elation of the discovery of new music in earlier eras.

An exciting program! Very much recommended to those with a sense of adventure. It shows us that Hugo Carvalhais does not stand still, but has become an artist to be closely followed. Here is a place to start, for sure.

Gustavo Leguizamón, El Cuchi Bien Temperado, Pablo Márquez

Gustavo “Cuchi” Leguizamón as played by classical guitarist Pablo Márquez (ECM New Series 2380)? Yes. El Cuchi Bien Temperado is an album of compositions for solo guitar beautifully arranged by Márquez from the zamba dance pieces of Argentinian poet, guitarist, pianist, composer Leguizamón (1917-2000) and played in an excellently vibrant manner.

Leguizamón was a folk innovator, adopting and internalizing the Argentinian zamba tradition but then adding modern elements harmonically and melodically. Like Bach's "Well-Tempered Clavier," the cycle of pieces as arranged by Márquez covers all 24 possible keys. They bring out the guitar sensibilities and brilliance of Márquez vividly in performances that reach out to the listener. And most importantly, the musical results stay with you on repeated hearings. It is marvelous music in definitive performances.

Any guitar enthusiast who is serious about the full range of possibilities needs to hear this one, both for the magnificence of the pieces and the sheer artistry of the guitarist.

Give yourself something new and fantastic. Grab this one!

Pat Bianchi Trio, A Higher Standard

The organ trio revival shows no signs of lagging, which I personally think a good thing. To keep it all alive a trio must be very good, of course, or what is the point? Happily such a good, even excellent trio can be heard in the Pat Bianchi conflagration, with Pat on organ, Byron Landham on drums and Craig Ebner on guitar. A Higher Standard (21-H Records) is the album in question and it is very worthwhile.

As implied by the title, this is primarily a set of standards, with a couple of Bianchi originals to spice the mix. The standards on tap are not entirely typical. "Without A Song," "Some Other Time," and "So Many Stars" come out of the great American songbook repertoire but then there are some jazz goodies like Coltrane's "Satellite," Evans's "Very Early" and Pettiford's "Bohemia After Dark." There is also something in the contemporary song realm, Stevie Wonder's "From the Bottom of My Heart."

The musicianship is on a very high level and the arrangements are well done. Bianchi has the bop and post-bop facility we expect in abundance. He has the velocity and imagination of a first-rate Hammondist, and as much a modern post-Earland quality as not. He takes up a good deal of solo time and does it with soul and good pacing. Ebner has the sort of chops and nuance that makes for an excellent second voice in the trio. Landham swings imaginatively and with the nuanced drive of a real pro. Put these three together with this material and you have an excellent trio album.

One of the better organ trio albums of the year so far. Get it!

Ameranouche, Sunshine Soul

With the recent revival or the Django Reinhardt-Gypsy Jazz style of guitar-centered jazz we have experienced a good deal of music that sounds near to the Hot Club Paris ensembles that served to establish Reinhardt as the first bonafide European jazz innovator. Remakes are fine and have a place in reintroducing and popularizing various styles, but ultimately when such as style begins to progress in its own right, all the better for the music scene.

We can hear a clear development happening with the trio Ameranouche and their album Sunshine Soul (Red Squirrel Records). There is the solid chunk of rhythm acoustic guitar which is so important a part of the style, there is solid bass backing, though much more adventuresome than typical of Gypsy style jazz as we ordinarily hear it, and there is virtuoso, extroverted lead acoustic guitar to be heard as one might expect. But the solos both partake in the Reinhardtian style while they extend it and go beyond it. It is no accident that the album cover proffers the music as "Gypsy Flamenco Swing," because there is a flamenco element to be heard, too. Nonetheless all of it has original directionality.

The musical threesome consists of Richard "Shepp" Sheppard on guitar and vocals, Michael K. Harrist on upright bass and vocals, and Jack Soref on guitar. Both guitarists can solo well, the bass playing is very fine and then there is one cut where they are joined by Tobey Sol LaRoche on percussion and vocals for a Gypsy swing version of the soul classic "Could it Be I'm Falling in Love," something unexpected but a refresher given its one-off nature.

It's an album of good music, excellent guitar playing, excellent bass work, plus it goes someplace with the Gypsy style that other groups have not. For all those reasons I recommend the album to you heartily.