Life In The Sugar Candle Mines

BLACK HOST: Life in the Sugar Candle Mines
Northern Spy, 2013

AVANT-JAZZ – Yow. This way-out, energetic quintet is confident, bold, and incisive. Gerald Cleaver pushes all the levers on drums, while Brandon Seabrook’s chaotic guitar noise jostles for position against Darius Jones’ pained alto sax wails and Cooper-Moore’s dense clusters of free piano. Add punchy bass and electronics for a rocky thrill ride.

Fo’s Picks: 2, 3, 5, 6, 8

1. 16:10 – alternates lumpy improv, rolling grooves, steady trudge, and chaos: check out jittery piano, whining sax solo in middle, madness later
2. 11:23 – free-jazz: thick percussion quietly propels spiky piano against very slow melody; wild guitar takes over in middle; sax in final third
3. 8:04 – slow brooding composition, dark, with wide open, creepy midsection
4. 6:35 – insistent uptempo pulse: improv accents in an infernal groove, fades
5. 6:01 – moody atmospheric melody cluttered and confused with noise layers
6. 12:58 – disorienting: heavy reverb under slow motion sax, fast drums & piano… eventually guitar cuts in to trigger a paranoid freakout
7. 5:59 – heavy beat and creaking/crackling improv; post-rock tune in 2nd half
8. 10:28 – slow echoing sax intro; drifts into a slow, hallucinatory ballad

[ Fo ] - 2 June 2013