Label: AUM Fidelity, 2023
Personnel - Ava Mendoza: electric guitar; James Brandon Lewis: tenor saxophone; Devin Hoff: electric bass; Ches Smith: drums.
What an electrifying outing this is! Echolocation features a stellar quartet of impulsive musical adventurers co-led by guitarist Ava Mendoza and bassist Devin Hoff, who share compositional duties and sign four pieces each. Rounding out the group are the acclaimed saxophonist James Brandon Lewis and the multi-faceted drummer Ches Smith. The music - unflagging creative jazz with a post-punk ethos - slashes like a stiletto, demonstrating their fearlessness in experimenting with new concepts and blending genres with forward-looking vision.
“Dyscalculia” boasts overwhelming power at its core, borrowing from heavy metal. Penned by Hoff and inspired by numbers dancing in his head, this piece progresses in five and features probing bass lines with enough rock groove to pique your ears. Lewis’ saxophone rides are authoritative, flanked by ferocious guitar washes and supported by a mesh of fired-up drum attacks.
Two other standouts from Hoff are “Babel-17”, a mercurial prog-rock catharsis with defiant punk attitude and polyrhythmic smarts, and “The Stumble”, an odd-metered experimental blues with a suggestive Afrobeat tapestry woven by Smith. Hoff nurtures the intro and also solos distinctively.
Mendoza’s compositions don’t lag behind. “Echolocation” piques our curiosity with a spaced-out guitar intro before straddling between noise, indie rock and spiritual jazz. There’s a cyclic harmonic sequence over which Lewis’ improv becomes fervent, while Mendoza, more melodic, employs long sustains.
If ‘Interwhining” feels like a danceable funk rock exercise - fans of Red Hot Chili Peppers can enjoy heavier atmospheres on this one - that also swings rebelliously before going wild, then “Diablada”, inspired by a Bolivian carnival folk dance, brings an exotic theme to the table. The group crosses frontiers with amplified saturation, and guitar interjections work as an energetic foil for volcanic saxophone eruptions. All of it runs on top of muscular, exuberant grooves provided by Hoff and Smith. Yes, it’s heavy listening with thick densities, but I bet you’ll be asking for more. I want more!
Favorite Tracks:
02 - Echolocation ► 04 - Babel-17 ► 06 - Diablada