Gordon Grdina & Jim Black: Martian Kitties

Avant Jazz / Free Improvisation / Avant-Garde
premiera polska: 2021-11-02
kontynent: Ameryka Północna
kraj: USA
opakowanie: ecopackowe etui
opis:
Editor's info:
Although Vancouver-based guitarist and oud player Gordon Grdina and legendary drummer Jim Black had already played together in Grdina's Nomad Trio, this is their first release as a duo. Presenting the duo in a freely improvised setting, 'Martian Kitties' is a much looser and in some ways more exciting affair than their previously released recordings together.

jazztrail.net
This outstanding set of improvised pieces by the guitarist/oud player Gordon Grdina and the drummer Jim Black, bristles with multi-genre paradoxes and incredible articulations. Recording together for the second time (after Grdina’s Nomad Trio’s debut album), these lads bring lots to the table with their faultless synergy and love for the avant-jazz, prog-rock, indie electronic and world music.

Things get down to business immediately with “Martian Kitties”, the track that gave the album its title, which pairs down an incisive krautrock rhythm with noise-rock, two ingredients that always go well together. The density is momentarily decongested through spacious effects before the reinstatement of the zest via torqued high-pitched ostinatos and walloping drumming.

The next piece, “A Monkey Could Do It”, changes dialects into an avant-fusion where an extraordinary oud rhythm functions properly over the mutating abrasions of wood on metal and skin provided by Black, an authentic guru of the rhythm.

“Buggy Whip” is dark and sinister, with heavy electric guitar and taut drum in a confluence that seems to join the doom metal of Paradise Lost and the noise-rock of Lightning Bolt. Totally different is “Conservative Conservation”, which takes us into a journey crystallized by beauty and tension alike. This is created by Black’s unpredictable and highly syncopated fluxes and Grdina’s full-of-feeling oud peregrination.

Pieces that are short in duration (clocking in at less than two minutes) provide a panoply of otherworldly atmospheres - “Black Lodge” exudes a classical-inspired etherealness; “Weird Funk” is made of unhinged smears of odd beat, crushing guitar and sampling; “Social Scene 1 and 2” trench on ambient electronic while adding some wistful tones; “Short Scale” has visceral oud playing laid atop a muscular rhythm; and “Fuzzy Goats” takes you to a psychedelic trip.

The creativity of both is discernible, and “Abercrombie” exemplifies that in perfection during its two phases - firstly, by sporting bowed cries over a dark, noisy electronic texture, and then by underscoring the narrative with a menacing rumble that comes from offbeat drum gushes and cyclic guitar lines.

This is adventurous music by two idiosyncratic players who have excellent results by joining their own visions.

muzycy:
Gordon Grdina- Guitar, Oud
Jim Black- Drums, Electronics

utwory:
1. Martian Kitties 04:11
2. A Monkey Could Do It 03:47
3. Buggy Whip 03:55
4. Black Lodge 01:32
5. Weird Funk 01:24
6. Short Scale 01:35
7. Social Scene 1 01:10
8. Brushes With Death 06:29
9. Social Scene 2 01:28
10. Conservative Conservation 03:21
11. Fuzzy Goats 01:30
12. Abercrombie 05:02
13. Bear Handler 02:18

nagrano: Recorded and Mixed at Afterlife Studios by John Raham

more info: www.astralspiritsrecords.com