Review – SLF
Author: Ben Watson
Source: The Wire , Aug 2004
“SLF reject the motifs that have congealed into cliche, and come up with a music where intuitive rhythm and analytical intellect jostle each other and become one… ludicrously superb.”
Review – W+C
Author: Doug Wallen
Source: Philadelphia Weekly
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Whales and Cops, Great Bouncing Icebergs EP (High Two):
Only ex-Man Man folks could make a racket this batty.
Review – W+C
In listening to Whales and Cops’ Great Bouncing Icebergs, I can’t help but think of Roadside Monument’s swan song, I am the Day of Current Taste. Few remember such albums, and it’s a shame. Some albums are just too inventive for their own good. Great Bouncing Icebergs shares the math rock, post-punk tendency of I am the Day of Current Taste, but Whales and Cops do all their work through loops, blips, and electronic hiccups.
Even likening Great Bouncing Icebergs to anything else doesn’t quite work other than to allow a window into bits and pieces of its makeup; it’s not precise enough. For instance, “Bent Cop” doesn’t really have anything to do with math rock. It floats on organ and flute as if it should sit on a Death Cab for Cutie record – at least for the first minute or so of its play time. The percussion is diverse and reckless. Hand drums sit along what sounds like trash cans and chimes.
The instrumentation on Great Bouncing Icebergs doesn’t sound mechanical. Flute, violin, clarinet, cello, sax, and – oh yeah – flugelhorn all weave squares of color into the quilt. It’s organic first and foremost, an electronic album that doesn’t sound like electronica.
The stand out track, the flagship of the album, is “Suave Homeless Asshole”. At nine-plus minutes, it’s neither too long nor too smug. It’s nearly wordless. At times cacophonous, gothic, cheery, spacey, “Suave Homeless Asshole” reminds that making a song over five minutes long can be done well. In fact, Great Bouncing Icebergs sounds like a cohesive album more than an EP. It’s hard to believe that the EP is only twenty-one minutes long. So much is packed in there.
I had never heard of Whales and Cops before now. I don’t think many outside of Philly have. On the strength of Great Bouncing Icebergs, however, if there’s any justice in the record biz – and I’m not sure that there is – Whales and Cops will keep making records. What’s more likely is that talent like this will delight a select few audiophiles and will be completely ignored by anyone with money to throw behind such a unique band.
As far as recommendations go, this one goes without saying. It’ll cost you little, and it’s worth a lot. This will most likely be on a short list of my favorite listens of 2009.
Review – W+C
Author: Doug Wallen
Source: Philadelphia Weekly, Umm…Drop
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Puzzle-pop doesn’t get much more puzzling than on Great Bouncing Icebergs, the long-awaited album by the madcap Philly troupe Whales and Cops. It’s packed with intimate shivers and hulking revelations and everything in between, beeping and blurring while virtuosic players with fake names wrangle vivid new life from their instruments.
Maybe that sounds like hyperbole, but this band’s sonic extremes are enough to shock even listeners weaned on years of Man Man, from which Whales and Cops were an offshoot. A more kindred spirit these days might be Make a Rising, an equally batty ensemble with two albums on the local label High Two, which will soon release Great Bouncing Icebergs.
Just finished, the album doesn’t have a track listing yet. That and the absence of real names increases the disorienting experience that is Whales and Cops’ ambitious jazz- and classical-damaged art-pop. Vocals are an iffy quantity at best, although one track finds a sublime voice stepping in as if to sooth a sobbing child. But it lasts less than a minute, and in other places the singing is mercurial at best.
As with Man Man, the drumming and other percussion is stunning. Constantly evolving but always involving, it holds down the fort for a most erratic array of sounds. Yet there’s a very real undertow of pop here, from wind-swept strings and pristine female backing vocals to buzzing and bouncing synths. Having multiple multi-instrumentalists is key for Whales and Cops, and Great Bouncing Icebergs certainly benefits from so much rapid-fire scene-changing and many kaleidoscopic build-ups.
But hey, if you still think these guys can’t possibly be as eye-poppingly strange as described here, head to their warehouse show and let their friends cut your hair. Yes, they’re offering free haircuts before the show. Why? Because they can.
Review – Dave Burrell
Author: L. Pounds
SourceL Earshot! Dec 2004
“Expansion is an outstanding jazz collage of pounding raw piano chord chunks, beautiful sprinting tonal lines, calculated piano flitter meanderings, bottom-end rumbling disjointed-walking jazz bass lines and expressionist/explorative drum work.”
Review – Dave Burrell
Author: Ben Watson
Source: The Wire August 2004
“Burrell’s take on jazz tradition is intelligent and wilful, refusing the categories thrust on it by outsiders… This is the record to bring Burrell to the attention of all listeners who crave the unmistakable thump of authenticity.”
Review – Dave Burrell
Author: Francis Davis
Source: Village Voice – Tuesday, December 21st 2004
2. DAVE BURRELL: Expansion (High Two) The best of the year’s many piano trios, with William Parker and Andrew Cyrille pacing a veteran eclectic whose stride on “They Say It’s Wonderful” is, and whose karate clusters elsewhere persuade you it don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that ping.
Review – Dave Burrell
Author: Ed Hazell
Source: Boston Phoenix
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A sensitive and original interpreter of Ellington and Jelly Roll Morton, as well as a free-jazz player with a clear sense of form and a wide lyrical streak, pianist Burrell has never fit into a neat category. His new trio with bassist William Parker and drummer Andrew Cyrille bridges the entire span of his music and brings it to life with exceptional vibrancy. The whole jazz tradition echoes throughout the collective free improvisation on the title track. Another free piece, “Double Heartbeat” has Burrell’s lightly dancing touch spinning out one long continuously evolving line over the interweaving bass and drums. Parker’s rich, cello-like arco bass, with its resemblance to human sobbing, is featured in duet with the pianist on the wrenching “Crying Out Loud.”
Burrell has always been one of the most history-conscious pianists associated with free jazz. His relaxed solo interpretation of the Irving Berlin standard “They Say It’s Wonderful” sticks close to the melody and displays his debt to Morton and the stride pianists. The trio meld bebop, stride, and free pulse into a rhythmically elusive blend on “Coup d’État.” March rhythms form the basis for an alternately playful and menacing “About Face”; a lilting African-influenced pulse is the foundation of a serene “In the Balance.” There’s a gentle, almost unassuming, quality to Burrell’s playing that belies his conceptual playfulness and formal rigor. In this trio with players of equal ingenuity, he’s made what may be the best recording of his nearly 40-year career.
Review – Dave Burrell
Author:
Source: Jazz Times
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DAVE BURRELL FULL-BLOWN TRIO
Expansion (High Two)
“My greatest recorded work,” says 64-year-old Dave Burrell on the press release accompanying the Dave Burrell Full-Blown Trio’s Expansion (High Two), and by golly, after listening I would be shocked if it wasn’t. Burrell’s stylistic grasp encompasses the breadth of jazz history, from Dixie to bop and beyond, yet forms an organic, inimitable whole. An early-jazz feel suffuses his work-sometimes explicitly, as on the title track or his solo version of the Irving Berlin standard “They Say It’s Wonderful,” but just as often implicitly. A Jelly Roll-ish bounce is palpable even on such collectively improvised, nontonal pieces as “Double Heartbeat.” Drummer Andrew Cyrille and bassist William Parker lend a decidedly modernist component occasionally inconsistent with Burrell’s broader approach-it’s impossible to imagine Parker playing the Berlin tune as straight as Burrell would require, for instance-yet their instincts prove nearly infallible. Everything works. A terrific album. -Chris Kelsey