Gary Hassay, Dan DeChellis, Tatsuya Nakatani (12" LP)

SIGNAL TO NOISE Fall 2007
Allentown, PA seems doomed to be remembered for Billy Joel's wretched 80’s anthem, but alto saxophonist Gary Hassay must surely be considered its free jazz king. On this limited edition vinyl pressing of Live At WDIY, Hassay and cohorts, pianist Dan DeChellis and the remarkably adept percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani, present three slices of free improvisation full of heart and impulse. Hassay’s probing, dry-ice inflected attack cuts deep, while DeChellis coaxes sounds from his keys in a technically facile, if not wholly distinct fashion. The real star of the session, though is Nakatani, who expands his traditional kit with bowls, cymbals, drums and other devices to produce an impressive battery of sounds. On the textural musings of “View From The Bridge,” Nakatani goes Euro-style with a skittish craftsmanship that takes advantage of the microtones of his kit (scrapes, beats, blinks and clangs), while DeChellis focuses on rhythmic variances and Hassay sallies forth. “Our Friend Judd” lays down an open-ended, fiery excursion with Nakatani sticking to his traps and Hassay whisking up a tempest. Finally, the meditative “Song For Simone” gives Hassay the opportunity to display his vocal techniques. While his throat singing is certainly an acquired taste, it validates Hassay’s commitment to emotional candor in his music. While the beautiful, yet modestly packaged audiophile LP presents only thirty minutes of the concert, Foreign Frequency should be commended for including an accompanying CD containing the entire performance. While this slab of wax may not be around for long, it is encouraging that Hassay’s work has its backers and proof that free-thinking individuals do exist outside of our major metropolitan locales.
—Jay Collins

Z GUN issue # 1, Summer 2007
An outstanding record by a fantastic free jazz trio from Allentown, PA. Hassay/DeChellis/Nakatani play three pieces, each one eliciting conflicting moods of confusion and contentment, frustration and tranquility, sadness and fulfillment, all done with a tight intensity. What is remarkable is that this tension is achieved without resorting to the bombastic noise many of todays free groups use. Sax, piano, and percussion (and for one song, voice) are tightly entwined but still manage to give the feeling of space, something Jimmy Giuffre was able to master. All players seem acutely aware of what the other is doing, while, at the same time, cutting paths for themselves. View From The Bridge tumbles into existence and churns along like a stream that broke its banks, effortlessly navigating around seated obstacles, moving forward until the thought is dry. Our Friend Judd starts and ends subdued but intense, a quiet, compact form of energy and slyly slides into an inner dialogue that reminds me a lot of Aylers' non-dirge work on the Village Vanguard records. Nakatani reveals his magic by coaxing a series of creaks, squeaks, and shrieks out of his drum set. His work is so good that in Judd and Song For Simone, I was convinced another horn or violin somehow joined in. I write somehow because, on Song For Simone, Hassay exchanges his sax duty for vocals. Rather than sing in a conventional manner, Hassay drones sounds that remind me of old Folkways & Nonesuch records of Whirling Dervish chants and Tibetan Monk prayers. Behind Hassay, DeChellis and Nakatani slowly build, sliding in sound so effortlessly that the seam between they and Hassay is nonexistent. After ears dulled by so much noise for jazz's sake, a record like this is a big treat. Excellent.
—Scott Soriano

DUSTED MAGAZINE       Still Single: Vol. 3, No. 7
Not knowing any of the players on this LP aside from Tatsuya Nakatani, who has spent the past few years developing a reputation as one of the better improvisational drummers in New York City, I was a little apprehensive about what might lay in this record's grooves, especially given the bassless lineup of alto sax, piano and percussion. Apprehension melted into appreciation as the two tracks on the first side showed a trio in full command of not only its instruments but its improvisational power and spontaneity, sometimes mixing in some toned-down beauty. Gary Hassay leads the way on the sax, squealing and squonking not only with an amped ferociousness, but also with a decent sense of when not to blow it all out (a quality not always shared by younger saxophonists). Nakatani and DeChellis deftly move in and out through Hassay's twists and turns, and both employ a pretty wide range of styles and techniques familiar to any fan of free music, yet are interesting enough as players so as to not sound stale. The real highpoint of the set, though, comes on side two where the side-long “Song for Simone” begins with Hassay tackling some throat-tickling solo singing, in the style of a less-nasal La Monte Young (or maybe a less-cold Tuvan throat singer). Some nice overtones ring through Hassay's wordless notes, and eventually his partners come through with some subtle scrapes and chords as accompaniment, showing a nice and gentle counterpoint to side one's occasionally frenetic jams. On clear vinyl, with hand-stamped labels, and includes a CD with album and bonus tracks. (JH)

Solar Fire Trio Rise Up (CD)

Aiding & Abetting (#287)
Tenor sax, alto sax and drums, often played at their most annoying. Thing is, all this noise does make sense. You don't even have to wait the songs out. Yeah, it's the most heinous cacophony, but the ideas are right there on top. Under no circumstances should this be played in the company of epileptics.

All About Jazz (August 2007)
Recommended New Listening:
• Solar Fire Trio — Rise Up (Foreign Frequency)
—Andrey Henkin, Editorial Director, AllAboutJazz-New York

All About Jazz (September 2007)
Prepare yourself to hate Rise Up, by the Liverpool group known as Solar Fire Trio. Not hate in the sense of bad music or difficult sounds. Hate as in “sacred hate.” Like the Pravda quote from 1935, “. . . Irreconcilable, inflexible, untamable hate should be nourished by every worker, by every collective farm worker, by every soldier and office employee, by every teacher and artist, because this hate is a great, heroic, sacred hate which belongs to the proletariat.”

Perhaps in the realm of free jazz, free being the key word here, that hatred is not of class or political party but of horror. Just open a newspaper, read about war, OJ Simpson arrested again, hunger, and corporate greed. Okay, close your newspapers and try to enjoy a Dave Brubeck record.

Can’t do it.

Now you are ready for the Solar Fire Trio, a two saxophone plus drums trio that plays with an unrelenting fury. Pick your comparisons: Albert Ayler, Archie Shepp, Pharoah Sanders, Frank Lowe, Joe McPhee, or Peter Brötzmann—these musicians have dipped their toes into the same streams.

The disc opens with two horns blowing repeated notes as drummer Steve Belger (The Muffin Men) plows through with some heavy stick work. Soon enough Ray Dickarty (Spiritualized) and Dave Jackson are crossing swords of sound. Belger keeps things in a driving mode throughout the opener, and the energy and volume either invite you in or drive you away.

If you are still with us, the remaining two tracks, nearly thirty minutes of music, balances some simmering quiet moments with more energetic jazz. Volume doesn’t change this music. Try playing it at a low volume and the intensity remains. Raise the decibels and the flower opens.

The experience can be quite exhausting. Certainly the most appropriate quote here is from ex-Clash front-man, Joe Strummer: “Oh anything I want, he gives it to me / Anything I want, he gives it but not for free / It's hateful / And it's paid for and I'm so grateful / To be nowhere.”
—Mark Corroto
*Original may be found HERE

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Family Pet

BULL TONGUE #27
Family Pet 12” A free-rock duo, these guys remind me a bit of a jazzic version of Happy Flowers, with less emphasis on vocals, and more focus on the pure evil pleasure of destructive construction. Spazzed out and personal.
—Byron Coley / Thurston Moore

TERMINAL BOREDOM Summer 2007
Family Pet “Ideas are the Enemy” 7”
Family Pet spends just under three minutes barking out “Ideas Are the Enemy” on their third single-song, single-sided release. Whereas their previous efforts were purely chaotic, this track has the band exploring easy listening territory with its much more limited instrumental palette — a duet between Willie’s sax and A.M. Haine’s voice. I’m being facetious; though less noisy and perhaps easier to understand, “Ideas Are the Enemy” is anything but saccharine. The horn wails freely in the foreground, dipping into abrasiveness at times, while Haine is omnipresent, howling in the back. The sounds play well off of each other, and the song itself adds another dimension to Family Pet’s growing legacy. Limited to 115 copies.
—Dave Hyde

TERMINAL BOREDOM Spring 2007
Family Pet s/t 7” & 12” Family Pet is from way up in Gardiner, Maine, which I would have guessed an unlikely origin for such challenging, cacophonous music—but I suppose the state that is home to Orgonon, the former home, laboratory, and research center of Wilhelm Reich, has room for this too. The 7” at hand is a single-sided platter in which the duo plays the keyboard as though they’re attacking it with a hammer, and the drums with similarly reckless abandon, creating a free-form racket. The 12”, also single-sided, is an extended mess that adds a saxophone and more prominent vocals to the mix. This song carries on at an even pace and volume so that the chaotic playing blends into a comfortable noise. Surely these folks spend their days listening to Ayler, Mars, Demo Moe, and Sun Ra—or at least their music reflects the vision of these predecessors. Family Pet is an end of the night, room-clearing kind of band—unless it’s an incredibly hip room.
—Dave Hyde

SILTBLOG (Online Blog) July 2, 2007
Three 1 sided records come courtesy of Family Pet (an LP + 2 7"ers) & it's about as zonked & lo-fi improvo la spazzathon as your likely to order by mail in the here & now. Hailin from Brunswick, Maine I can easily see this duo as bein the East Coast response to The Geeks, or at least havin ate a copy of that band's 'It's Not About Notes Anymore' lp. Lot's of LOUD keys, horns & percussion & vocalist A.M. Haines sounds like he might've jumped off the boat ramp at Sawyers Point about a hundred times too many. What's not to love?
— Roland Woodbe

APPLES AND HEROIN (Online Blog) July 4, 2007
Family Pet splatter paints violent guitar and spazz keyboard strikes across landscapes of wailing Braxton sax on their self-titled 12”. The crazed caveman-core will surely draw comparisons to “LA Blues” but that tune contained structure. The one-sided [untitled], 45 RPM album collapses the Jenga stack before the game even begins, leaving its audience to ponder scattered blocks. Chaos dominates the mindset, as the trio explores wreckage in search of a groove. Eventually, they find the groove to be the wreckage and muse on it for an entire album side. These guys beat the spine out of music and use its blood as war-paint. —S. Kobak

Z GUN issue # 1, Summer 2007
The untitled 7" is a one-sided blast of everything in the bucket free jazz produced by a duo from Maine. Like Chad Stockdale's duos (Klondike & York, Chad & Kevin), Family Pet leaps straight into a twist of noise and don't let up until they've sapped their reserves. Also like K&Y, it takes about a quarter of a song to hear the duo click, prior to that moment, the music feels like disorganized thoughts and I grow impatient. I want the keyboards and percussion to battle together not each other. When Family Pet does get into synch, the tad a frustration is well worth it, because these fuckers get a head on and really slice away at sound... The one side 12" is more of the same - high energy pound & skronk - and takes a little less time to click. It is also pretty funny. The first thing that came to mind is that this is what I'd have used for the openeing scene of 2001 is the cavemen were spastics... Best of the bunch is Ideas Are the Enemy. One side, one song, once again, Ideas... is just vocal and sax. They've either practiced this act or are Siamese twins: Their timing is uncanny. the music is loud, fast, chaotic and full of humor. Good Stuff.
— Scott Sorian

A.M Haines  "Trimuphant Ghost" LP

Head Heritage   October 2007
Talking of vital vinyl-only drone-o-thon releases, I got lots to scream about regarding TRIUMPHANT GHOST, the debut LP by A.M. Haines, on the American Foreign Frequency label. Commencing like an angry wasp in a British Aerospace food blender, this is one Uber useful bastard which sets its controls for the heart of your spiritus sanctus, but – like the demented hyper sibling of Kabalist, Poochlatz and Anal (the 18-minutes of ‘Journey Through a Burning Anal’ most specifically) – Haines’ lofty and singular muse never forgets its raw beginnings as Martin Rev’s motorized afterbirth. So tell me that anyone with access to a quart of Fernet-Branca and a powersaw could achieve this racket and I’ll smash yer face in! Instead, search out your very own copy of this startling motherlode via www.foreignfrequency.com/ff_newreleases.htmland prepare for the psychic enema you KNOW your brain deserves. Yowzah!
—Julian Cope

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