The defiantly uncommodified lead-off track 'Metal Sounds' from the upcoming East Axis album No Subject (Brother Mister) does not disappoint in the least. The crux a first listen certainly suggests is the role of bassist Kevin Ray and more obviously the extraordinary soliloquising of saxophonist Scott Robinson who afer a long piercing and repeated held high note early on goes further to ride the livewire spikiness of pianist Matthew Shipp in the atonal undergrowth like a tightrope walker. Drummer Gerald Cleaver after about four minutes begins to swing the out-there trajectory behind Shipp's rippling anarchic solo line to take the tune in another direction. Certainly there is a lot going on in the construction of the piece as the quartet internalise the aching moan of the plangent lead lines. Give or take a bit of metaphorical licence the blues and the abstract truth tantalise in equal measure freely spreed about. A track that's a trip worth revisiting again and again.
East Axis - top, left-right: Matthew Shipp, Kevin Ray, Scott Robinson, Gerald Cleaver. Photo: Bandcamp
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