Edward Ricart Quartet - Ancon [Slam]

Herb Robertson - trumpet, little instruments
Jason Ajemian - bass
Andrew Barker - drums
Ed Ricart - guitar




SLAM Productions 2012

I've never heard before of Ed Ricart but the idea of the quartet with guitar and trumpet on the fron immediately caught my attention. And this particular quartet in equally immediate way reward the attention with the storming rock energy of "Celestial Mechanics" with its heavy riffs, dense grooves and refreshing spontaneity.

The following "Eurypterids" starts minimalistically with abstract sharp notes of guitar and but developes into full-level noise cutting-edge exploration with all four instruments contributing to this wonderfully loud universe. There's some more minimalistic experimentalism in "Truth", with its strange delay effects and thin tin sound of trumpet. And more gutt-wrenching and noise-bending in the abyss of low drones on the bass and guitar pyrotechnics where the notes get literally squeezed out of the strings, with some colourfull, dynamic and polyrhythmic drumming on the top and air-cutting trumpet flies as in "Abilene" or "Dermatoglyphics". The music is noisy, psychodelic, raw and wild, but the latter tracks have its more mellow moments of thoughtfull silence and echo ("The Sun's in Your Face" with is lyrical guitar intro that gets distorted and disturbed with delay effects and disturbing noises somewhere around, "Wake Up" with cosmic, spacious echoes and disturbing drones). There's an unlisted bonus track to finish the cd with short outburst of apocalyptic energy.

This quartet plays some seriously heavy music, improvised yet cohesive, noisy yet focused, raw and uncompromising. Fabulous plaing all around by the four musicians, immaginative, creative and adventurous. Enjoy loudly.

some tracks are presented in this radio playlist.