Jim Black & The Schrimps - Ain't No Saint

February 9, 2023

Label: Intakt Records, 2023

Personnel - Asger Nissen: alto saxophone; Julius Gawlik: tenor saxophone; Felix Henkelhausen: acoustic bass; Jim Black: drums.

Jim Black, an insightful drummer and composer with a propensity for knotty rock textures, joins forces with three European musicians with ages under 30: Danish alto saxophonist Asger Nilssen, German tenor player Julius Gawlik and German bassist Felix Henkelhausen. An indomitable energy prevails throughout the 12 tracks on Ain’t No Saint.

The chord-less session starts powerfully with “The Set-Up”, a tribute to 76-year-old trumpeter Baikida Carroll with whom Black played on Tim Berne’s octet album Insomnia (Clean Feed, 2011). The ensemble rides raw surfaces, externalizing gestures with a gripping immediacy. Henkelhausen defines the harmony with permanent commitment, and his work is also relevant on two natural-sounding pieces that follow a more standard song format: “No Pull”, which slows things down through a leisurely 4/4 pop/rock stream; and “The Once”, which he introduces with empathetic involvement, later having long saxophone notes giving it harmonic context. Following his improvisation, the intensity of the latter piece is impetuously elevated into a pragmatic if athletic rock circularity.

“Snags” reveals swinging urgency with the saxophonists in synchronous activity during the main theme, and then becoming very communicative in their interspersed statements. Equally exposing a good swinging time, “Surely” is bounded by an incredible rhythmic stimulation, with Nilssen and Gawlik gearing up a pump of adrenaline before making their phrases converge in the last minutes.

There’s tremendous passion behind every drum stroke, and Black excels particularly on “Asgingforit”, a more overtly progressive cut imbued with a hymn-like solemnity, as well as “Bellsimmer”, where he contributes to the fray by tapering off into world-inspired rhythms and prog-rock terrain. The ritual insurgence embraced by the horn players here differ from the elated melody delivered in parallel on “Crashback”. The bandleader digs in on the occasion with an inexorable rhythmic drive, turning the piece into an entrancing groover.

Black’s implacable body of work will reward followers of muscular avant-garde jazz and resilient rock hybridity.

Favorite Tracks:
01 - The Set-Up ► 03 - Asgingforit ► 06 - Bellsimmer

Gordon Grdina / Jim Black - Martian Kitties

August 9, 2021

Label: Astral Spirits, 2021

Personnel - Gordon Grdina: guitar, oud; Jim Black: drums, electronics.

This outstanding set of improvised pieces by the guitarist/oud player Gordon Grdina and the drummer Jim Black, bristles with multi-genre paradoxes and incredible articulations. Recording together for the second time (after Grdina’s Nomad Trio’s debut album), these lads bring lots to the table with their faultless synergy and love for the avant-jazz, prog-rock, indie electronic and world music.

Things get down to business immediately with “Martian Kitties”, the track that gave the album its title, which pairs down an incisive krautrock rhythm with noise-rock, two ingredients that always go well together. The density is momentarily decongested through spacious effects before the reinstatement of the zest via torqued high-pitched ostinatos and walloping drumming.

The next piece, “A Monkey Could Do It”, changes dialects into an avant-fusion where an extraordinary oud rhythm functions properly over the mutating abrasions of wood on metal and skin provided by Black, an authentic guru of the rhythm.

“Buggy Whip” is dark and sinister, with heavy electric guitar and taut drum in a confluence that seems to join the doom metal of Paradise Lost and the noise-rock of Lightning Bolt. Totally different is “Conservative Conservation”, which takes us into a journey crystallized by beauty and tension alike. This is created by Black’s unpredictable and highly syncopated fluxes and Grdina’s full-of-feeling oud peregrination.

Pieces that are short in duration (clocking in at less than two minutes) provide a panoply of otherworldly atmospheres - “Black Lodge” exudes a classical-inspired etherealness; “Weird Funk” is made of unhinged smears of odd beat, crushing guitar and sampling; “Social Scene 1 and 2” trench on ambient electronic while adding some wistful tones; “Short Scale” has visceral oud playing laid atop a muscular rhythm; and “Fuzzy Goats” takes you to a psychedelic trip.

The creativity of both is discernible, and “Abercrombie” exemplifies that in perfection during its two phases - firstly, by sporting bowed cries over a dark, noisy electronic texture, and then by underscoring the narrative with a menacing rumble that comes from offbeat drum gushes and cyclic guitar lines.

This is adventurous music by two idiosyncratic players who have excellent results by joining their own visions.

Favorite Tracks:
01 - Martian Kitties ► 10 - Conservative Conservation ► 12 - Abercrombie

JP Schlegelmilch / Jonathan Golberger / Jim Black - Visitors

September 19, 2018

Label: Skirl Records, 2018

Personnel - JP Schlegelmilch: keyboards; Jonathan Goldberger: guitars; Jim Black: drums.

This cohesive new organ trio co-led by Brooklyn-based keyboardist JP Schlegelmilch, guitarist Jonathan Goldberger, and drummer Jim Black, ventures down creative paths of indie rock with a casual, serrated jazzy edge in its statements. Their album, Visitors, is staggeringly crafted with a rugged, psychedelic rock technique and assertive textural developments, featuring eight tracks whose instrumental depth is consummated by the magical interplay among the trio members.

“Corvus” is a prog-rock archetypal that perhaps better illustrates this. Electronic manipulations precede the excavation of a 7/4 groove exalted by sturdy rock moves and fleshed out by an incandescent guitar solo that comprehends flickering sound waves, bluesy riffs, arpeggiated sequences, and jazzy chords. After a calmer passage, the groove shifts to six, seducing Schlegelmilch and Goldberger to embark on a cross-conversational dialogue while Black holds to a funky percussive flux.

Showcasing brighter tones and intense emotions, “Ether Sun” is a Pink Floyd-esque song elegantly arranged with soaring keyboard sounds, smooth bass coordination, and firmly fixed rhythm.

Stressing idiomatic rock textures, “Lake Oblivion” is divided into two distinct yet complementary parts. The first one carries a restless ambiguity in its classic hard-rock charisma, while the second, advancing at a 5/4 tempo, equips the same package with popish acoustic instrumentation and a distorted electric fizz.

The title track comes hooked in a triple meter. The versatile drummer moves with sheer boldness, supporting the use of methodical synth maneuvers for ambient and noisy guitar strokes for impact.

If “Chiseler” erupts with tactile dissonances and power chords in a clear inclination toward prog-rock, then “Terminal Waves” has its climatic peak with Goldberger’s cryptic metal-inflected solo over an exquisite textural work that becomes slightly tumultuous until mitigated by atmospheric organ layers and drones.

Being a deluxe product of like-minded cohorts, Visitors is also striking and rewarding, displaying enough personality and range to keep us thrilled.

Favorite Tracks:

03 - Ether Sun ► 04 - Corvus ► 06 - Lake Oblivion II

Meyer/Slavin/Meyer/Black - Other Animal

January 29, 2018

Label: Traumton Records

Personnel - Peter Meyer: guitar; Wanja Slavin: saxophone, synth, flute; Bernhard Meyer: bass; Jim Black: drums.

Other Animal is a quartet led by the German brothers Peter and Bernhard Meyer, guitarist and bassist, respectively, who take all the credit for the twelve compositions on the band's debut album. They are joined by the Berlin-based saxophonist Wanja Slavin and the American drummer Jim Black, a pivotal figure in the New York jazz scene.

The animated beat that introduces “Drown Dreams”, an oblique, dreamy, chamber pop song, doesn’t dissemble some solemnity attached to its melody and harmonic conduction. There are a few grey clouds encircling it, but shining sunrays make the liberation possible. Exclusively on this tune, Slavin plays synth and flutes.

The sluggish drum chops of “Name of Cold Country”, sparse yet well coordinated with the bass lines, go along with the melodious saxophone and soaring electronic effects. The lightness of this architecture of sound gains further depth with Peter’s beautiful harmonics and warmly distorted chords. Yes, it may feel ponderous and wintry, but comes stuffed with emotion.

“Mr. Manga” and “Qubits” share vibrant pulses characteristic of the alternative rock genre. The former shifts tempo with resilience and autonomy, unraveling into interesting experimental passages, while the latter adopts a cool danceable posture reinforced with syncopation and the presence of a shaker. The opposite scenario is set up on “Downbear” whose dark and gloomy textures depicted by distorted guitar would give a great doom-metal piece. These sonic waves impel Black to adventure himself a little bit more by the end.

Obeying intricate time signatures and packed with clear-cut unisons, “Nongeniality” showcases strong melodic ideas turned into ostinatos. They keep echoing all through Slavin’s eloquent, cliché-free improvisation.
The somber “E Dance” concentrates forthright bass plucks, flickering guitar cries, and an edgy drumming that toggles between adaptably human and metrically robotic. A unified sonic cloud grows simultaneously spacious, intense, and haunting.

Slightly jazzier, “Spectral” is a ruminative song whose sound propagations lead us to atmospheric realms borrowed from ambient electronica and neo-glam. With bass and drums anchored in a polyrhythmic web, both guitar and sax comfortably seek freedom to roam.

Sometimes thinly polished, sometimes strenuous and unyielding, Other Animal creates interesting and variegated soundscapes dipped in the independent rock genre.

Favorite Tracks:
01 - Drown Dreams ► 02 - Name of Cold Country ► 06 - Nongeniality