(Avant-Garde Jazz / Experimental / Jazz-Rock) [CD] Dead Country feat. Alfred 23 Harth - Gestalt Et Death - 2012 [Al Maslakh MSLKH 15], FLAC (tracks), lossless

Dead Country est un quartet entre rock et improvisation libre originaire de Turquie. On y retrouve le leader de konstruKt Umut Çağlar (guitare électrique, synthétiseur monophonique, tape delay) en compagnie de Şevket Akinci (guitare électrique), Murat Çopur (basse électrique) et Kerem Öktem (batterie & percussions). Pour cet album publié sur le label Al Maslakh, on retrouve également le musicien allemand Alfred 23 Harth, au saxophone alto principalement, mais qui se permet également quelques excursions vocales, à la clarinette et à l'électronique. Ce dernier a collaboré plusieurs fois avec John Zorn, avec l'orchestre jazz d'Otomo Yoshihide ou encore avec des membres de Zu. Autant d'influences qu'on retrouve au sein de ces sept morceaux orientés vers une sorte de free-rock, assez saturée et énergique. Parfois, quelques teintes de funk, de punk ou de dub apparaissent, mais elles sont la plupart du temps noyées dans l'aspect free-noise de ce quintet. Un quintet qui sonne très fin des années 90, début 2000 en somme, très Zornien, genre Painkiller pour l'énergie et Naked City pour les collages et l'aspect éclectique. L'énergie est là bien sûr, avec un aspect très boute en train et assez surprenant, mais c'est tout de même déjà entendu. Ravira certainement les fans de free-rock, mais pour ma part, je trouve quand même que ça manque d'innovation, même si c'est plutôt agréable à écouter.
Improv Sphere ~ Julien Héraud
Rip-roaring chronicles from Alfred 23 Harth’s 2011 visit in Turkey, where a partnership – make that “collusion” – was born after the Frankfurter was invited to act there with this local group (previously hidden to this reviewer’s cognition). Gestalt Et Death sounds pretty coarse in terms of recording quality – one would think to a precise artistic preference, sort of a “let’s combine ingredients in the alembic and see what happens”. The force deriving from the interfusion hits right on the chin, the recordings – uneasy to ingest on the introductory attempts in spite of Dead Country’s sparse usage of rock-ish constitutions – possessing the staying power and the emblematic qualities of albums that do not need technical attires and fatuous facades to invite the listener, warranting significant substance instead.
“Horseman’s Most Expensive Effect” is a rather enigmatic “ritual” opening delimited by a hefty vamp: overdriven bass and overwhelming percussiveness, Harth blowing upon them in peculiarly strained fashion. “Fiery Red DC” offers a withering representation of punk jazz, sharp-cornered riffage and muscular drumming the basis for A23H and Çağlar swapping heavy leather before the matter gets mangled into tiny bits of rust-brown dissonance. “96205 Ararat” is the most non-concrete piece on offer, a challenging synth solo spiraling erratically inside a perpetually mutating tapis of percussion and electronics until everything calms down spellbindingly. More gargantuan pseudo-rock structures are found in “Lady Deathstrike’s Healing Factor”, perhaps the track where Harth expresses his on-the-spot creativity at best, alternating trademark sax furore and funnily enlivening “commands” yelled into a microphone and resonating with echo; the finale, a blasting mix of indocile guitars and synthetic misbehavior, is also remarkable.
The longest improvisation is (splendidly) titled “Cessily In Liquid Form Blindly Teleports The Entire Team Rag”; here, methinks, lies the finest moment of the disc, subsequent to an initial robotic oratory: a handsome arabesque depicted by the German on the bass clarinet, layered over a growingly engrossing fixed-tone drone and a clean first, knifelike later axe underlying the function’s exhilarating prospect. The concise “Mr. Burroughs’ Finger” returns to the anarchy of a free-for-all blowout bathed in scathing electricity and odd metered arousal, whereas the conclusive “Jump Off The Timestream” takes shape from deformed/flanging throat emissions and electronics enhanced by ferociously abstract strings, sealing the whole with the type of who-cares-about-defence fusillade that might annihilate your cerebral activity for a while; Harth’s sporadic declamation adds the necessary dose of enigma in a cataclysmal crescendo ended by himself with a terrific wordless invocation.
Serious mayhem overall; play loud. And dig this “vocally improved” version of Mr. 23′s impromptu cogitations: a new color in an already awesome palette. Kudos to Al Maslakh for having had the balls of publishing this stuff, definitely not easy to advertise or squeeze into the average consumer’s will of trying uncomfortable music.
Touching Extremes ~ Massimo Ricci

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Path: ...\Dead Country feat. Alfred 23 Harth - Gestalt Et Death[2011]
1 -=- 01-Dead Country feat. Alfred 23 Harth-Horseman's Most Expensive Effect.flac -=- CDDA (100%)
2 -=- 02-Dead Country feat. Alfred 23 Harth-Fiery Red DC.flac -=- CDDA (100%)
3 -=- 03-Dead Country feat. Alfred 23 Harth-96205 Ararat.flac -=- CDDA (62%)
4 -=- 04-Dead Country feat. Alfred 23 Harth-Lady Deathstrike's Healing Factor.flac -=- CDDA (99%)
5 -=- 05-Dead Country feat. Alfred 23 Harth-Cessily in Liquid Form Blindly Teleports the Entire Team Rag.flac -=- CDDA (99%)
6 -=- 06-Dead Country feat. Alfred 23 Harth-Mr. Burroughs' Finger.flac -=- CDDA (100%)
7 -=- 07-Dead Country feat. Alfred 23 Harth-Jump Off the Timestream.flac -=- CDDA (100%)
Summary 94,29% CDDA
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