MACHINE GUN – Machine Gun (MU Records ‎– MU 1001 / LP-1988)

Label: MU Records ‎– MU 1001

Format: Vinyl, LP / Country: US / Released: 1988

Style: Experimental, Jazz-Rock, Free Improvisation

Side A recorded live at the Court Tavern, N.B., N.J.

Side B recorded live at CBGB's N.Y.C., except Trinity Rain recorded

at Trinity College, Hartford, Conn.

All tracks improvised

Cover design by – Thi Linh Le

Produced by – Robert Musso

Engineered by – Tom Ruff

Mastered by – Howie Weinberg

℗ 1988 MU Records / Printed in Canada

Matrix / Runout (A-Side Runout, Etched): MU 1001 SA QΔ 1-1

Matrix / Runout (B-Side Runout, Etched): MU 1001 SB QΔ-X 1-1

side 1:

A1 - In Court ............................................................................................................. 5:53

A2 - The Opening Of Entry ....................................................................................... 3:30

A3 - Fancy Products ................................................................................................. 3:46

A4 - Prancing In Your Bed ........................................................................................ 4:48

A5 - Dive ................................................................................................................... 3:50

side 2:

B1 - Myffy's 1st Date ................................................................................................ 2:49

B2 - The .8 Factor .................................................................................................... 3:58

B3 - One For The Chipper ........................................................................................ 2:04

B4 - Trinity Rain ........................................................................................................ 3:21

B5 - Hierocryptics ..................................................................................................... 5:52

Personnel:

Thomas Chapin – saxophone, flute

Robert Musso – guitar, 6-string bass, electronics [ambient tapes]

Jair-Rohm Parker Wells – electric bass

Bil Bryant – drums [acoustic and electric drums]

John Richey – electronics [vocal cut-up's, tapes]

with guests:

Sonny Sharrock – guitar

Karl Berger – melodica, voice

Thomas Chapin (March 9, 1957 – February 13, 1998) was an American composer and saxophonist/multi-instrumentalist. Though primarily an alto saxophonist, he also played sopranino, as well as soprano, tenor, baritone saxes and flute.

Many of his recordings as a leader featured his trio with drummer Michael Sarin and bassist Mario Pavone, occasionally joined by guests, as well as founding Machine Gun, a free-funk-free-jazz-rock band with guitarist/producer/engineer Robert Musso.

Chapin studied with Jackie McLean and Paul Jeffrey.

Chapin died of leukemia three weeks before his 41st birthday. He last played two weeks before his death, at a benefit concert.

Karl Berger / Sonny Sharrock

For all practical purposes, this is the very first Machine Gun record, comprised of two live performances in New Jersey and New York. Machine Gun was a band that played hybrid forms of rock, jazz, and funk, all from an outsider's perspective. Personnel were the late saxophonist Thomas Chapin, guitarist Robert Musso, drummer Bill Bryant, bassist Jair-Rohm Parker Wells, and vocalist and electronic cutup artist John Richey. Special guests on these dates included the late guitarist Sonny Sharrock and Karl Berger (melodica, voice). From the opening skronk of "In Court," it's obvious that Machine Gun plays high-energy, visceral music. There are riffs and form, but lots of improvisation follows that form, and mutates it further into other forms. Feedback, tape manipulation, and hard rock and punk attitude are at the heart of the Machine Gun approach to music and noisemaking. On "Fancy Products," a striated funk riff is wound around itself and a vocal until it becomes a harmolodic jazz riff that collapses in on itself before remerging as a colossal free improv jam where Chapin and Musso trade out eights for the remainder.

On the New York CBGB's date, which covers the latter half of the disc, percussion and guitars create sparkling shards of rhythm as Berger plays a melodica through the center of "Muffy's 1st Date," turning around a small lyric idea until it gradually expands out to involve the entire band in its hypnotic simplicity. Here again, there is little refinement to the approach -- just an insistence on energy and forward thrust as the dynamic range collapses by the seventh or eighth track. This is very interesting.... and performance promise incredible sense of space and sounds, and in the end you get it all in the best possible manner .... Great album!

(Review by B. Bismount)

If you find it, buy this album!

LAST EXIT – Last Exit (Enemy Records ‎– EMY 101 / LP-1986)

Label: Enemy Records ‎– EMY 101

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album / Country: Germany / Released: 1986

Style: Free Jazz, Heavy Metal, Free Improvisation

Recorded at New Morning, Paris, Feb 16, 1986.

Mixed at Quad Recording Studios

Design – Thi-Linh Le

Photography By – Val Telberg

A&R [Enemy Records Administration] – Michael Knuth

Engineering: Robert Musso

Assistant Engineer: Peter Sturge

Mastered by Howie Weinberg

Producer, Performer, Composed By – Last Exit

Matrix / Runout (Runout A-side, stamped): EMY 101 - A1

Matrix / Runout (Runout B-side, stamped): EMY 101 - B1

side 1:

A1 - Discharge .......................................................................................................... 3:28

A2 - Backwater .......................................................................................................... 5:30

A3 - Catch As Catch Can .......................................................................................... 2:15

A4 - Red Light ........................................................................................................... 8:03

side 2:

B1 - Enemy Within ...................................................................................................  3:50

B2 - Crackin .............................................................................................................. 7:49

B3 - Pig Freedom ...................................................................................................... 4:03

B4 - Voice Of A Skin Hanger ..................................................................................... 1:46

B5 - Zulu Butter ......................................................................................................... 2:28

Personnel:

Peter Brötzmann – saxophone [tenor, alto, bass]

Sonny Sharrock – guitar

Bill Laswell – electric bass [6 strings]

Ronald Shannon Jackson – drums, percussion, voice

In the mid-'80s, Bill Laswell had a great idea. Why not combine rock's raging rhythms and volume with free jazz improvisation's unfettered creativity and ferocity? To this end, he made three inspired choices to fill out his band. Drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson was a veteran of Ornette Coleman's Prime Time ensemble as well as a past member of Cecil Taylor's volcanic mid-'70s bands. Sonny Sharrock had burst onto the scene in the late '60s with Pharoah Sanders, Don Cherry, and others, establishing a unique approach to free electric guitar playing, only to retreat from the scene before being lured out of retirement by Laswell. The wild card was German saxophone behemoth Peter Brötzmann, known for his classic, shatteringly intense album Machine Gun from 1968 as well as multitudes of subsequent recordings where a premium was placed on visceral, gut-wrenching interplay among musicians. Mix these elements together and Laswell (with his own funky, dub-heavy electric bass anchoring the proceedings) had an incendiary formula, one that perhaps couldn't hold together long but, while it did, it produced some amazingly powerful music. Never was this more in evidence than on this first, self-titled release, one of the very finest albums of the '80s.

Entirely improvised, Last Exit nonetheless based most of its pieces on blues forms, even if highly abstracted. This bedrock allowed the musicians, particularly Brötzmann and Sharrock (whose early death in 1994 would cancel any possibility, however tenuous at that point, of the group's continuation) to freely explore the outer boundaries of their instruments, sublimely soaring over the down to earth and dirty rhythm team of Laswell and Jackson. This tension, strongly shown on the first four tracks here, reached almost unbearable degrees; its release when they would slide back into a groove leaves the listener utterly drained. Subsequent albums (notably Koln) would come close to attaining this level of intensity and creativity, but Last Exit ranks as a pinnacle both in Laswell's career and in the jazz/rock/free improv genre it spawned.

A classic release, one that should be in the collection of anyone interested in either contemporary free improvisation or the more creative branches of jazz/rock.

(Review by Brian Olewnick)

If you find it, buy this album!

LAST EXIT – Cassette Recordings 87 (Enemy Records ‎– EMY 105 / LP-1987)

Label: Enemy Records ‎– EMY 105

Format: Vinyl, LP / Country: Germany / Released: 1987

Style: Jazz-Rock, Free Improvisation

Cassette recordings from Copenhagen, North Sea Jazz Festival, Den Haag, Allentown, Penn. Produced at Quad Recordings, NYC. Mastered at Masterdisk.

Mastered By – Howie Weinberg

Other [Enemy Administration] – Michael Knuth

Producer [Assistant] – Robbie Norris

Producer [Salvage Production] – Robert Musso

Matrix / Runout (Side A, Etched): EMY 105 / Efa 03505 A

Matrix / Runout (Side B, Etched): EMY 105 / Efa 03505 B

side 1:

A  -  Line Of Fire ...................................................................................................... 20:35

side 2:

B1/B4 - Big Boss Man > Sore Titties > Ulli Bulli Fooli > Ma Rainey ....................... 16:29

             1 - Big Boss Man ............................. 1:05

             2 - Sore Titties ................................. 6:17

             3 - Ulli Bulli Fooli .............................. 3:57

             4 - Ma Rainey .................................. 5:08

B5 - My Balls / Your Chin .......................................................................................... 2:36

Personnel:

Peter Brötzmann – saxophone [tenor, alto, bass], tárogató

Sonny Sharrock – guitar

Bill Laswell – electric bass [6 strings]

Ronald Shannon Jackson – drums, percussion, voice

Beautiful, 1987 German Only Original vinyl LP. Recorded Live At The North Sea Jazz Festival.

Sharrock / Brötzmann

Laswell / Jackson

Raw, but these live recordings are better recorded than the title might indicate. Into this recipe Peter Brötzmann brings the euro improvisation ferocity and Cecil Taylor influences, Sonny Sharrock adds the American jazz innovation, Ronald Shannon Jackson's ingredients include the blues and bang-on-a-pot suddeness, and Bill Laswell, well he contributes a fatty slice of the avant garde, and some knowledge of knob-twidding to boot would be my guess. All mixed into an explosive whole. Noisy, yes. Freely, most definitely.

The first track, "Line Of Fire", is a good example: Albert Ayler opening, then rumbling, rumbling, rumbling, and everyone goes off into their own worlds, all the while maintaining a semblance of being a band, a grouping, a gathering of artists, rather than just some guys standing in the same room, blasting and clanging and squalling away on what-have-you. There's superb interaction despite all the sonic feces being flung every which way.

So I'm going to say: stay patient, give it time and a few listens, and you may find yourself falling in love with (or at least have a passing attraction to) a band that no longer exists but which once held the music world by its ear and gave it a good shake.

(Review by RIStout)

If you find it, buy this album!