Locus Solus – “Locus Solus” – [Tzadik]

Max Level   1/26/2006   CD, Jazz

A total Trane-wreck of a band. John Zorn/Arto Lindsay/Anton Fier, core members of the early Golden Palominos, among a ton of other downtown NY projects, reconvene here, live at Tonic, during Zorn’s 50th birthday celebration marathon in 2003. Typical of a Zorn-led band, the material is jagged stop-start-stop jazz/noise. Zorn’s alto sax spends most of its time in full-on shriek mode. Lindsay is on guitar and vocals, and if you’ve heard his most outside work then you’ll know the kind of scraping, noisy, metallic playing he is capable of. He also talks/yells a little bit, often not in English, adding another type of spice to an already quite spicy mix. Fier on drums doesn’t do anything that jumps way out on its own, but he’s always right there supporting the other guys, making solid additions to what they’re doing. Every once in a while there is a recognizable jazz interlude, with Zorn’s alto sax playing a good bebop-style run, but it’s never more than a few seconds before they’re back to torturing the baby pigs again. I like it.