Talibam!/Wasteland Jazz Unit – Ecstatic Jazz Duos [Thor’s Rubber Hammer]/Long Legged Woman – Untitled [Thor's Rubber Hammer/Pollen Season]

I have a couple of vinyl offerings from Lars Gotrich's Thor's Rubber Hammer label--and they couldn't be more different. The Ecstatic Jazz Duos LP features two acts crumpling up jazz and then trying to press it flat again while the Long Legged Woman 7inch in some ways feels like a lost relic of the 90s but still somehow sounds very "now."
Talibam! covers the first side with "The Geometric Mophometrics of P.P.P.P.P. McNasticals". Beginning with chiming church bells/church organ sounds and then promptly freaking out, Talibam! gives you a good idea of what you’re in for right off the bat. Having downsized into a duo of synthesizer and drums since the last record I heard by them, they sound tighter here. They indulge more in their idiosyncrasies but also incorporate them more coherently. After that freak out full of pitch bender and modulation wheel spinning things settle into a pretty heavy, thick maelstrom of sound—always impressive coming out of two people, especially on synth and drums. The drums begin to shoulder the majority of the wigging out and the synth interjects a few sci-fi organ parts before getting heavy once more and bringing it all home. Probably my favorite moment of the whole record is this heavy pummeling is resolved with a totally unexpected hip hop section where someone is yelling “party one” or something like that and other voices are saying unintelligible stuff too. It’s a brilliant, inspired moment to be sure. After the 30 seconds of party jams things return to normal but with a slightly more rock vibe to go with the skronk. The element that makes this side work is Talibam! keeps things moving constantly. There are no dead sections or places where the two aren’t sure exactly where they are headed. This is a pretty rare and impressive aspect to find in jazz in general and especially in underground jazz stuff I’ve heard. After that freak out ends, there is a vaguely fugue-like part where the synth keeps looping parts over itself. It’s quite cool but doesn’t last as the drums crash the party rather quickly. Matt Mottel’s synthwork runs the gamut here contributing mellow organ-type parts like that as well as weird farty, ray-gun sounds that jump around Kevin Shea’s unfailingly energetic and hectic drumming. A pretty rad 18 minutes that flies by. I’m gonna be away in Europe when they’re playing Seattle in the spring, and after hearing this I’m even more bummed about it. Compared to the stuff I heard from them a year or more ago they are really taking things to the next level.
Wasteland Jazz Unit resides on the second side. I’d heard the name around but I knew nothing about them, but I figured with a name like that how can they not be great? This shit fully exceeded my expectations, not to mention that I just lost it when I saw this is only saxophone and clarinet. WJU seriously maximize the badass potential of a sax/clarinet line-up. I refuse to believe someone could make gnarlier, more intense sounds with that set-up than Jon Lorenz and John Rich do. My favorite of the two tracks here “Termite Prayer” comes first and let me say it is dangerous to listen to with headphones. The two guys spit out probably thousands of shards of feedback in this track. It’s almost like harsh noise. There are layers of sound here, but they aren’t static. Tones are very rarely sustained and when they are its meaningful. I’d describe the sounds as “jellybone” if they weren’t so punishing. You can still tell the sounds are coming from sax and clarinet but those instruments are morphed into entirely different beasts. Similarly to my comment about the Talibam! side, things are in a constant state of motion here, never getting stale or feeling long. “Cicada Sermon” begins less harshly with an almost industrial vibe (not the genre) before things explode in low-end rumble and blaring sax or clarinet not even sure which. The textures conjured up here are just phenomenally tactile and jagged. It’s not quite as in-the-red as “Termite Prayer” so there is a little bit more by way of melodic tones coming to the surface. No doubt it’s still crushing. I’m amazed how Lorenz and Rich create such a strong, if constantly shifting, sense of rhythm. They aren’t using loops that I can hear, and obviously there is no percussion driving the pieces, but they’re rhythmically driven nonetheless. I guess that ability is just one thing that separates them from your average free jazz crew. Anyone into non-traditional jazz, noise, improvisatory music or just really intense sounds should check this record. A tour-de-force of a jazz album in a way I’ve never heard before.
Long Legged Woman is an act I’ve never heard of but apparently they are formerly from Athens, GA and now in San Francisco. This single fits into the classic form with the uptempo number on A-side and a ballad-type track on the B-side.
“Something is Pressing Against it from the Inside” starts up quickly with a ringing guitar arpeggio which is joined up with chugging palm-muted chords. The chorus slows wayyyyyy down that there is almost a vaguely classical quality to me, I can’t quite pinpoint it. The whole track has a bit a 90s revivalist sound to me--I was only aged 2-12 during throughout the 90s so there may be an obvious musical reference point that I'm failing to pickup on. The track is fairly brief and it’s on to the next side.
Long Legged Woman change things up with “Scalpels in the Sky” a mellow, faraway track of acoustic strumming and a melodica/reed organ melody. The vocals and something else, maybe electric guitar, sound even further away. There is a great sleepy, mysterious vibe to the track. It’s like when I’m up late watching movies and they seem extra surreal cause I’m half asleep. The song strikes a strange balance between being a lonesome downer and being sweetly melodic. Restless but dreamy, strange but still quite normal. The first side is solid but it’s been the B-side that’s spent the most time on my turntable. Great, peculiar song.
The packaging of these two releases has its finer points as well. Long Legged Woman comes on super slick marbled seafoam green vinyl and Ecstatic Jazz Duos features extreme closeup (whaaaaahhohhh!) artwork by Cristopher Cichocki. (sorry for the Wayne's World reference I couldn't help myself.) Both records are still in print, and Ecstatic Jazz Duos is available solo or as part of a subscription series (next installments feature I Heart Lung/DWMTG and Valerio Cosi & Enzo Franchini/Jeremiah Cymerman & Matthew Welch)

Gay Beast – Disrobics [DNT]/Talibam! – The Excusable Earthling [Pendu Sound]

I’ve been floating on a cloud of great LPs and here’s a couple more to add to the cloud. Disrobics is DNT’s first foray into LPdom, while The Excusable Earthling is the second LP the Pendu organization has put out following the rad NY-based comp long player Getting Rid of the Glue.
Gay Beast hails from Minnesota and is a trio of drums, keyboard and guitar I believe. “What You Want” sets the tone for the rest of the record. Gay Beast play very angularly, almost mathy. Though the mathiness doesn’t sound “prog” at all, it’s more akin to a band like Ex Models where songs are complex rhythmically but come off as seeming tightly crafted rather than showy. “What You Want” is one of the better tracks on the album and is a great example of what I like about Gay Beast, that is they know how to hit the sweet spot. After a frenetic flailabout they lock in and play a really fantastically melodic chorus. One of the things I like is when they hit their choruses it doesn’t feel like a different song. Instead of something like “let’s play a jerky verse and then play a pop song chorus” where the result seems awkwardly mismatched, Gay Beast’s tracks always remain consistent and authentic no matter what sorts of musical tricks they pull. Anyway, sorry for the digression. “Cock” has been in a head to head battle with “Good Government” (which I’ll get to in a minute) for favorite track on the album, and it probably has the edge. “Cock” has a stronger bass presence than the other tracks which really works, the pairing of the guitar’s and keyboard’s lead lines is perfect and there’s a rad chorus that’s catchy as hell. It’s a fantastic song, and at under two minutes it never ceases to leave me wanting more. “Mama, Wrap My Coffin in the A.I.D.S. Quilt Cuz It’s Cold in Hell” is another standout but in a much different way than “Cock”. It’s probably the weirdest track on the album to me because the arrangement and rhythms are quite off-kilter and all the directions the track goes in are hard to follow but, inexplicably, Gay Beast pulls you along making the lack of hooks totally catchy. “Good Government” closes out the A side and is, for sure, one of the best tracks on the record. It takes about 20 seconds or so to cast its spell but after that, man, am I hooked. Keyboard and guitar play unison lines to great effect before an absolutely beautiful keyboard lead jumps out and grabs you by the head. They then proceed to deconstruct their track, before giving the fans what they want and sneaking in a quick chorus before the groove runs its course.
“Cyclops” opens the second side and it’s a jittery affair anchored by a guitar arpeggio in the track’s second half. “3 Pairs of Eyes: Brown, Brown, Blue” would almost seem bouncy if it didn’t obliterate my brain. There’s great guitar parts in here but none of them seem to last for more than a few seconds. “I.D. Politic” is a relatively straightforward track and Gay Beast sound awesome playing the role of the straight man (no pun intended). Regardless of all the changes the track moves through, it’s just a strong, well composed rock song at heart. The same could be said for the next song “Cry” though it barely lasts long enough to write something down about it. The title-track closes the record in frantic fashion. That reminds me, “Disrobics” is the perfect title for this record because it’s relentlessly on the move but only in a way adverbs starting with “dis…” can describe i.e. “disjointedly”, “discombobulated-ly” etc. It’s a cool record, and definitely one that sinks its claws in you a little deeper each listen.
Talibam! hails from New York and is also a trio; drums, synth and sax & electronics (see these reviews are vaguely themed) though they since have downsized to drums and synth. “Explosive Soul” takes the length of the first side. These guys appear to do everything improv-style so you really get to witness something birthed from nothing. There’s weird squelches, loose drum rolls and whathaveyou before things begin slowly to take shape. There’s a lot of convergence and divergence where the group still start down one path only to abandon it for another. There’s this one part that’s so rad where everyone starts groovin’ to this chunky organ line. Props to the organ dude because he’s full these great out of this world, vaguely b-movie inspired keyboard parts. The drummer finds a nice balance between following “the beat” (if it can be called that) and telling the beat to fuck off. I’m not really hearing any sax on this track so I think that guy is pretty heavily involved in his electronics, which cast a smoggy, noisy cloud over the proceedings.
The flipside is also 17 and a half minutes and features “One Way Foot”. It begins the same way “Explosive Soul” did, but from ragged beginnings a flowering of great material shall bloom. The sax seems to make more of an appearance here which, being an appreciator of saxophone, I like very much. The keyboard interjects this really bizarre riff which sounds a little like something you’d here coming from an ice cream truck but sped up a bit. This proves to be a catalyst as the other guys get in on the action. My favorite bit of drumming comes here because, while refraining to bust out a full free form solo, the drummer drives the track without really repeating anything. This jauntiness fades and gives way to a smokier, lo-key passage which is a style that really works for these guys.
A lot of this “total psych freedom” stuff can be in danger being kinda boring and not that great, and though they can move somewhat slowly Talibam! is never boring and they dig up a bunch of neat little nuggets of sound along the way.
The Gay Beast record has fantastic artwork/screenprintwork (I dig the sparkling gold) and comes with an insert and LP labels, Tynan did an excellent job with his first LP. Pendu put together this Talibam! record with the utmost professionalism, with pro-printed sleeves and so forth and it even comes wrapped in plastic. Disrobics is limited to 500 and I’m guessing The Inexcusable Earthling is limited as well, though I can’t locate an exact number anywhere. Both are still available for cheap from their respective labels. Check ‘em out.