Label: Knockwurst Records, 2023

Personnel - Marc Ribot: guitar, vocals; Shahzad Ismaily: bass; Ches Smith: drums + Guests - Syd Straw: vocals; James Brandon Lewis: tenor sax; Anthony Coleman: keyboards; Greg Lewis: organ; Oscar Noriega: clarinet; Peter Sachon: cello.

The incendiary trio Ceramic Dog - spearheaded by guitarist, vocalist, composer, and activist Marc Ribot and rounded out by bassist Shahzad Ismaily and spectacular drummer Ches Smith - returns with Connection, their best album to date. Exploring wide-ranging rock palettes and giving it some avant-garde jazz color from time to time, the trio displays expertise in coming up with inventive ideas with an often riotous sound that mixes past, present and future.

The title track opens the proceedings with explorative energy. It’s a lo-fi, heavy punk rock piece with a strong chorus that will appeal to fans of Descendants, Ramones and Buzzcocks. The next track, “Subsidiary”, is more experimental and darker in tone, marked by distortion, feedback and voice modulation. With time, it gains a certain metal-inspired rhythm that bites and ingrains - I’m imagining Paradise Lost without the massive, growling vocals.

“Soldiers in the Army of Love” is garage punk with a chorus that rekindles the best of ‘80s, whereas “Ecstasy”, compellingly sung by Syd Straw with magnificent lyrics by Ribot, takes us on a trippy euphoric voyage where also inhabit Zappa, The Doors, The Fall and The B52’s. Anthony Coleman guests here, playing Farfisa organ, and the last section evokes Santana’s psychedelic ‘70s phase.

Saxophonist James Brandon Lewis shines on “Swan”, which, in a way, is reflectively modal and spiritually uplifting, ending with excellent guitar work by Ribot. The saxophonist is also heard on a brief jazz passage of “Heart Attack”, a revolving, anarchist noise-rock smash with lots of swearing.

Variation in the aesthetics is a favorable point, and if “No Name”, an instrumental that straddles between Iggy Pop’s Stooges and The Velvet Underground, mixes jarred melodies with surprising beats with orchestral strings, then “Order of Protection” takes us to Jimi Hendrix’s “Little Wing”. After a noise-rock rendition of Schwartz/Dietz’s “That’s Entertainment” (not the pop hit by Paul Weller’s The Jam), delivered here with playful keyboard playing, there’s a mix of fanfare and afrobeat to be savored on the closer “Crumbia”, which features clarinetist Oscar Noriega.

Hallucinated yet illuminated, there’s guts and progressive activism in a revolutionary new recording that’s definitely worth digging into.

Favorite Tracks:
02 - Subsidiary ► 04 - Ecstasy ► 05 - Swan

Label: Northern Spy Records, 2021

Personnel - Marc Ribot: guitar, vocals; Shahzad Ismaily: bass, keyboards, backing vocals; Ches Smith: drums, percussion, electronics, backing vocals // Guests - Darius Jones: alto sax (#6,7); Rubin Khodeli and Gyda Valtysdottir: cello (#8); Syd Straw: background vocals (#3).

Whether skirting rock, jazz, blues or funk, the guitarist/composer Marc Ribot always creates something fresh and finds powerful messages to deliver in our turbulent times. Hope is his third outing with the revolutionary Ceramic Dog project, in which he teams up with the bassist Shahzad Ismaily and the drummer Ches Smith. They are seen at the height of their powers in nine energy-filled tracks that were a direct product of the pandemic lockdown.

“B-Flat Ontology”, pinned with a minor chord whose colors take me to a particular passage of R.E.M.’s “Drive”, serves as a harbinger of Ribot's discontentment and frustration. According to him, it’s a depressing song, but it’s also an ironic one, where he doesn’t spare shocking performing artists, rock stars and young guitarists playing arpeggios at high velocity, contemporary poets, post-modern philosophers and pretentious singer/songwriters - “Isn’t it amazing? It’s just amazing! I’m just amazed!”, he sings.

The old and the new combine on “Nickelodeon”, a rockified reggae with a slippery bass groove, steady backbeat and a Talking Heads-like chorus; and also on “Wanna”, whose strong melodic riff and danceable slap beat were maybe fetched from to the 1980’s, including traces of funk rock that are redolent of Cameo’s “Word Up!”.

The satirical “The Activist” covers a lot of stuff in the spoken word (“I don’t accept…, I refuse, I resist.”), which flows atop slick bass moves and funk guitar interjections. Yet, I personally go for the instrumentals, two of which are bolstered by the guest presence of alto saxophonist Darius Jones who infuses extrovert avant-garde forays with fiery tones on “They Met in the Middle”, a country song, and “The Long Goodbye”, where the sophistication of Robert Wyatt meets the melodic distortion of Sonic Youth.

If “Bertha the Cool” navigates the groovy seas of smooth jazz via warm guitar octaves and licks, then “Maple Leaf Rage”, featuring two guest cellists - Rubin Khodeli and Gyda Valtysdottir - has two distinct halves: the first, more atmospheric, has Smith chattering fluently with brushes, whereas the second morphs into a blistering electric rock in which influences of Zappa and then Pink Floyd are noticeable.

The trio concludes the album with a cover of Donovan’s psychedelic pop song “Wear Your Love Like Heaven”, which they transform into a sort of evocative ballad sung in a Lou Reed style.

Ribot is a necessary figure in the current musical panorama, and the eclectic Hope has so many great flavors to be savored.