The Texan, Austin-based label Astral Spirits presents some of its finest Texas-grown talents – drummer Stefan González, known from Yells at Eels (with his father trumpeter Dennis and brother bassist Aaron, and with the Portuguese-American quartet Humanization 4tet (with guitarist Luis Lopes, sax player Rodrigo Amado and brother Aaron), guitarist Jonathan Horne, honorary Texan Ingebrigt Håker Flaten (who lived until recently in Austin, who hosted González in his The Young Mothers band), and sax player John Dikeman, who comes from New England and now resides in Amsterdam (and Hosted Horne in his Cactus Truck band). This free improvising, powerhouse quartet was recorded live at ZAAL 100 in Amsterdam in October 2019. The album is released in a limited edition of 175 cassettes plus a download option.
This ad-hoc quartet dives immediately into a fiery blowout jam on this fateful evening in Amsterdam. Håker-Flaten (who played on the bass of Wilbert de Joode) and González form a massive, irresistible and totally commanding rhythm section that keeps pushing the commotion into cathartic peaks. Dikeman, who follows the uncompromising legacy of sax players like Peter Brötzmann, blossoms in such occasions and Horne proves why he deserves much more attention and praise.
The quartet explores its sonic envelope on the opening «Kreptic Epoch», and enjoys the mastery and energy González who commands its fast-shifting flow of ideas and dynamics. It explodes on the second piece «Midnight Photosythesis» and you may understand how all qualities of this quartet, as a collective and four strong-minded individuals, blend into a fiery and dense sonic entity that just gets bigger, noisier and more distorted until the inevitable cathartic coda. Horne beautifully fuzzed-out solo at the beginning of «Pu Erh Gaze» send these «Texas Butt Biters» into abstract, post-rock territories, before all join the volatile and psychedelic freak-out but concludes this fun listen with a surprising, lyrical theme, with Horne still leading this piece.
Eyal Hareuveni
John Dikeman (s), Stefan González (dr), Ingebrigt Håker-Flaten (b), Jonathan F Horne (g)
