Hooker, William / Shamballa
Album: Shamballa   Collection:Jazz
Artist:Hooker, William   Added:Jan 1994
Label:Knitting Factory, the  

Recent Airplay
1. May 16, 2008: Memory Select
The Hat ... And Its Train [excerpt]

Album Review
Craig Matsumoto
Reviewed 2008-05-16
Duets with free-jazz drummer hooker and Thurston Moore (1,2) or Elliott Sharp (3). Nice noisy stuff from the glory days of the old Knitting Factory in New York.

1- Rock out; Hooker lets Thurston corner him into a joyous beat -- which is fine, but not what I came here to hear

2- Screechy, trashy, industrial, thrashy. A big noise sound; see also the Derek Bailey "Sign of 4" album with Pat Metheny.

3- A raging tumult; maybe I'm just prejudiced by the E# name, but it seems to have a more organic flow than the Thurston tracks. Certainly it bears more similarity to European free improv than tracks 1 or 2 do ... not to say the earlier tracks are bad; they're just different in a way that I'm not sure broke any new ground.

Track Listing
1. Sirius Part 1 - Wheels   2. Sirius Part 2 - Wings
  3. The Hat ... And Its Train