(Avant-Garde Jazz, Free Rock-Jazz) [WEB] Plymouth (Jamie Saft, Mary Halvorson, Gerald Cleaver, Joe Morris, Chris Lightcap) - Plymouth - 2014, FLAC (tracks), lossless

Jamie Saft, Joe Morris, Chris Lightcap, Gerald Cleaver, and Mary Halvorson. The simple mention of these five names is probably enough to frighten some people away from this album and make others rush toward it with open ears. Each one of the aforementioned musicians has a reputation for being a musical provocateur, pushing buttons, pushing the limits and challenging minds and ears with intelligent abandon. The music they make together under the banner of Plymouth could be dubbed free jazz, noise art, collective creation, or any number of similarly vague but telling things. Ultimately, it doesn't really matter what category this gets filed under. What matters is the musical mettle that this band demonstrates during the three lengthy improvised numbers that make up its eponymous debut.
While this marks the first release from this quintet, various long-term connections have been made between its members over the years, and guitarist Joe Morris stands as the central figure in the mix. Morris and keyboardist Jamie Saft go back twenty years and collaborated on Slobber Pup (RareNoise, 2013), drummer Gerald Cleaver and bassist Chris Lightcap have worked together in Morris' quartet and various other scenarios for quite some time, and guitarist Mary Halvorson studied with Morris once upon a time. Saft notes that "this group was actually conceived as a way to bring together Joe Morris and Mary Halvorson with a rhythm section of long standing friends and colleagues." This means nobody really needed to get acquainted with anybody else here, but that doesn't mean things sound comfortable and relaxed; actually, it's quite the opposite.
The album opens on the twenty-minute "Manomet," which starts out with B movie extra-terrestrial sounds that hint at the danger ahead. From there, things build, as a massive sonic cloud slowly mushrooms out, destroying everything in its path. The tension and terror recede, but not before some serious damage is done. The thirteen-minute "Plimouth" starts soft, but hits harder in some ways. Some rhythmic stakes are put into the ground on this one, with Cleaver scaffolding around the sound and the fury. The final number—the twenty-nine minute "Standish"—is both trippy and terrifying. Ambient paranoia hangs in the cloudy atmosphere and uncertainty lurks around every corner. A barrage of sound does its damage at one point, but the interest really comes with the blips and static that follow the storm. Saft's organ-ic anarchy, and the chaos that comes with it as the end nears, is also a gas. Plymouth really knows how to rile in style. (Dan Bilawsky)

Out of the box thinkers Jamie Saft and Joe Morris combined forces last year for an update on the guttural, jam-rock aesthetic popular around the turn of the 70s. Slobber Pup‘s rigidly simple song structures, unforgiving improvising and thunderous noise endeared itself to us enough to force its way into the year end list of best avant-garde and experimental albums for 2013.
Just a year later, the keyboardist and guitarist extremists are joining forces, surrounding themselves with a completely different supporting band. “Plymouth,” as this new band is called, is also the name of the new disc (due out April 6, 2014 via Rare Noise Records). Joining the two this time are Gerald Cleaver on drums, Mary Halvorson on guitar and Chris Lightcap on bass…not the usual standup bass, mind you, but a hollow bodied electric bass with a fuzz pedal. That’s added on top of the fuzz coming from Saft’s organs, and the distortion tones the sometimes can be heard emitting from the guitars. Not completely abandoning the acoustic spirit, Saft also plays a piano but one that’s run through an Echoplex, and Cleaver brings a tough but acoustic attitude to the drums.
Another Saft and Morris meeting goes a long way toward making Plymouth one of the most deservedly anticipated releases in experimental music this year, but don’t overlook the Morris/Halvorson union, either. Halvorson is the next generation’s Joe Morris (and you don’t have to take my word on that), a guitarist with a unique voice and who can find the harmonic center from the vaguest of clues. Thrown in an arena with Morris — much less Saft, Lightcap and Cleaver — is child’s play for this former student of Morris, and we’re treated to a lot of her direct interactions with the elder guitarist. The big takeaway is not how they butt heads and battle each other but instead how they complement each other so well.
Plymouth‘s tunes are all jams like Slobber Pup‘s, only three of three of ‘em in all, and it too sounds dirty and raw. The difference this time is the intensity isn’t relentless, there’s room from song development, texturing and little things that tend to get noticed better. All this works in favor of (and perhaps because of) Halvorson and her interaction with that other guitarist, Morris.
“Manomet” is a twenty-minute long, lumbering, droning organism with no tempo and Morris and Halvorson peppering the fringes of it with abstruse and unhurried lines. Soon afterwards, Saft’s B3 begins a long ascension into the forefront, eventually drowning out the guitarists. Halvorson mounts a counterattack and Morris joins in with sharp, distorted flutters, shooing away Shaft’s provocation and opening up a vast space where everyone collects themselves; Halvorson offers up a soft pattern of chords as Morris undertakes a psychedelic route in hushed tones to take this monster of a tune to the end.
A celestial, Echoplex piano commences “Plimouth,” while Morris, Lightcap and Halvorson’s signature nosedives probe around Saft’s astral showers. About midway through, things take a turn toward the rock side of things and Saft’s piano is overtaken by a big dose of organ and Cleaver’s straight-ahead pounding. Guitars and bass add to the party but that piano is still hanging around, almost superfluously. Morris’ blues-rock figures once again brings a song to its ending.
The shimmering piano again provides the initial backdrop, this time for the half-hour ride “Standish.” Halvorson adds blotches of curved-sound color that Saft sometimes responds with note bendings of his own and together with Lightcap’s wandering bass lines form an alliance of serenity. But then here comes that B3 from well behind the front line and once again, serenity turns into intensity. Everyone is improvising together instinctually as a unit, too. The grind comes to a standstill at the seventeen-minute mark and the Echoplex piano returns. Like opening up the windows to a house to let the random but refreshing spring breeze in, the five reload with new ideas, eventually returning to the thickness they molded earlier but with a renewed perspective. The whole thing culminates in Saft’s soaring organ solo, challenged by Cleaver’s insanely perceptive support.
Plymouth will probably be considered the successor to Slobber Pup, and that’s probably justified. But players like Halvorson, Cleaver and Lightcap aren’t brought in to round out an existing sound, they’re there to play key roles in shaping it. They do, and with the core of Saft and Morris remaining intact through it all, Plymouth is another triumph of sinister, free rock-jazz and the extemporaneous way it all came together. (S. Victor Aaron)