Reviews: (Dead Angel no.47) Rhythmic chunks of devolved free jazz from Shawn Kerby and Brian Noring. I have no idea what instruments they're playing (some kind of horn and, um, other stuff), but the sound brings to mind bebop musicians stretching out on stage in a forgotten bar late at night when the only people left are drunks too pixelated to care about the strange sounds radiating from the stage. This disc isn't as noisy as many PE releases -- in fact, it rarely strays from pure improv territory -- and some of the songs such as "Is There a Splash of Hope in a River of Sadness" actually approach being soothing. This sounds more like an undiscovered beat record from the sixties than anything "modern." Even more startling, "I Know" features the first vocal I've heard yet on a PE release (at least, the first thing recognizable as actual singing, anyway). The vocal element appears on a couple of other songs, often in hair-raising fashion. Some of this makes me think of Eugene Chadbourne, maybe even Gerald Hawk. Devolved beat jazz crossed with neo-primitivism? Whatever it is, it's strange and exotic stuff. -RKF
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