Reviews
Downtown Music Gallery Newsletter
"This is the fourth fabulous and ever-challenging disc from our favorite Australian band, who reinvent themselves on each release. The current personnel features Dave Brown on various guitars & basses, Tim O'Dwyer & Adam Simmons on saxes, James Wilkinson on trombones and Sean Baxter on drums & percussion. Their guests include Judi Mitchell on oboe & Philip Samartzis on synth. It's been a couple of years since their last disc and again they moved forward in a variety of ways. "Tesliana" opens and is a feisty blend of pounding jazz/rock with progressive tendencies. The three horns sound much bigger, giving this a small big band sound, that growling fuzz bass, el. guitar and drums burnin' majestically underneath, fueling the immense fury. The fuzz bass sounds like it is on the brink of erupting beyond normal distortion levels and their drummer is amazing, spirited and most creative throughout. The majority is made of the "evenement" suite (May-June 1968) in twelve parts, with sub-titles in French. The first part alone is one the scariest free/jazz nightmares in recent memory. Part 5 or "l'enrages" sounds like a modern gamelan piece with tuned percussion and trombones playing some hypnotic repeating harmonies. There are a number of free sections here, which actually have layers of interconnected parts, if you listen closely beneath the blur of activity. Part 7 or "surrealisme" is a somber duo for acoustic guitar and soprano sax, while part 8 explodes again with some intense wailing tenor sax and brutal electric guitar. The suite is well balanced between haunting, quieter sections and over-the-top eruptions. "earlwood" brings us back to a somewhat funky little big band sound with some fine hummable horn harmonies and scary fuzz bass. "brian mannix" brings our great story to a grand close, which again swings between hard charging horns and that pounding rhythm team. It kind of bridges the gap between the jazzier side of King Crimson with the Soft Machine 'Third' era horn section. Quite a magnificent effort all around." - BLG
allmusic.com - François Couture
Bucketrider's fourth album sees the group exploring different grounds than on their previous two releases. The first two and last two pieces are comparable to the best moments on Le Baphomet: riveting microtonal bass riffs, funky horn licks, rollicking drums. On that chapter, "Testiana" and the lugubrious "Brian Mannix" deserve a place in the group's live sets for decades to come -- the latter's bass part may be the meanest riff David Brown has committed to record yet. Book-ended by these pieces penned by Brown and Tim O'Dwyer is the long 12-part title work. A tribute to the French events of May and June 1968, which revealed the deep social malaise underlying Charles de Gaulle's France, "L'événements" is a rather loose suite of scored minimalist pieces, structured free improvisations, and entirely silent tracks ("Événement 2: Anarchisme," for instance). Composed by O'Dwyer, the work eschews the group's rhythmic drive in favor of alternately more serious and noisier leanings. Highlights include the quiet repetitive motive in "Événement 3," first stated on a toy piano before being picked up by the whole band (this section is strongly reminiscent of the main theme in the Spontaneous Music Ensemble's 1966-1967 piece "Withdrawal"), and a Brown solo developing into a introspective trio section of acoustic bass, soprano sax and synthesizer (played by guest Philip Samartzis). But taken as a whole, and despite its political overtones (and glaring French misspellings notwithstanding), the suite lacks compositional depth. It may work better on-stage, where its contrasting sections would be more vivid. Luckily, its weaknesses are counterbalanced by the force of impact of the other four pieces.
