Label: Otherly Love Records, 2025

Personnel - Mary Halvorson: guitar; Liberty Ellman: guitar; Nick Dunston: bass, electronics; Ches Smith: drums, electronics, vibes.

Ches Smith, a tremendously gifted drummer and composer who’s unafraid to embrace the ingenious intricacies of postmodern music, leads a fantastic new quartet featuring two exceptionally creative guitarists—Mary Halvorson and Liberty Ellman—and the sturdy bassist Nick Dunston. Clone Row, the follow-up to Laugh Ash (Pyroclastic, 2024), opens up a new level of musical experience, pulling us into hip sonic realms tied to contemporary hybridity.

The album starts by pushing boundaries in all different directions with “Ready Beat”, an electrifying piece that incorporates elements of alternative electronic music, rock-infused swagger, and a motorik-like rhythmic drive. The two guitarists—whether working with the same ideas or taking alternative paths of their own—sound almost too good to be true, delivering tightly coordinated passages and adventurous improvised segments. “Abrade With Me” emerges with guitar shredding and bilateral harmonic currents, supported by agile bass lines and syncopated drum kit attacks. The quartet’s synergistic impact gives rise to countermovements and undercurrents that merge progressive rock, EDM, and even hip-hop aesthetics.

“Clone Row”, composed using a twelve-tone row and contrapuntal methods, glows with an entrancing beat and nu breaks, eventually settling into a vamping 12-beat cycle. Meanwhile, “Heart Breakthrough” features parallel guitar-vibraphone activity, drum machine, ringing tones, and deft guitar runs. Its layered sonic world channels an African sensibility through the inclusion of vibes, all surrounded by a cloud of tasteful electronics.

“Play Bell (For Nick)”, a rock number in five with a zany intro, is similarly rich in electronics, while “Sustained Nightmare” has a few forces pulling it apart, with shifting arpeggiated chords set against a tardy flow of bass notes. This creates an intelligent soundscape of experimental art-rock fused with groovy trip-hop ambiance.

Something truly clicks between these four musicians - their advanced musicality, precision, and interplay are fundamental to the album’s success. Unleashing greatness in his drumming style, Smith crafts off-kilter yet locked-in grooves that serve as the propulsive engines of his compositions. His music grows increasingly adventurous and inventive, even when anchored in simplicity. Clone Row is a gem of modern creative music.

Favorite Tracks:
01 - Ready Beat ► 02 - Abrade With Me ► 05 - Heart Breakthrough ► 06 - Sustained Nightmare

Label: Pyroclastic Records, 2024

Personnel - Ches Smith: electronics, programming, vives, drums, tubular bells, glockenspiel, timpani, tam tam, metal percussion; Shara Lunon: voice, vocal processing; Anna Webber: flute; Oscar Noriega: clarinets; James Brandon Lewis: tenor saxophone; Nate Wooley: trumpet; Jennifer Choi: violin; Kyle Armbrust: viola; Michael Nicolas: cello; Shahzad Ismaily: bass, keyboards.

Extraordinary drummer and composer Ches Smith brings his A-game to a progressive and eclectic new album, Laugh Ash, gathering a bevy of avant-gardists and improvisers to explore the art of sound and intricate textural layering. His compositional taste and innovative spirit are reflected in numerous instrumental juxtapositions that, at a first instance, are easier to admire than to love. The agitation of the drum machines, synthetic in nature, oppose to the varied chamber moods, and a sense of novelty invades the album, pumping the pieces into an out-of-the-box listening experience.

“Minimalism” shimmers like a soap bubble, taking shape as layered electronic music with a fantastic rhythm, punk-rock singing by Shara Lunon, and synth momentum. This is followed by “Remote Convivial”, which chimes and vibes with slightly glitchy pitches, compound meter patterns, drum machines, spellbinding bass lines, and an outgoing saxophone solo delivered by James Brandon Lewis. The avant-garde scenario is heightened as string players embrace dissonance, akin to gazing at a blurred painting that retains its fundamental meaning.

The 10-piece ensemble dishes out polyrhythmic energies on “Sweatered Webs (Hey Mom)”, where funky bass trajectories meet Haitian rhythms. Lewis contributes another superb inside/outside tenor improvisation, and ethereal chants add a special interest. “Shaken, Stirred Silence” showcases a playful blend of ideas with Eastern connotations, odd meter provocation, asymmetry, angularity, avant expression via Anna Webber’s remarkable flute playing, and swooning electronic sensations that serve as a conclusion. All rhythmically rooted in skittering boom beats.

Clarinetist Oscar Noriega and trumpeter Nate Wooley bring unpredictable melodic directions and steep angles to “Unyielding Daydream Welding”, pirouetting around a foreboding dark drone and lively backbeat. They keep up their interaction in “Disco Inferred”, a propulsive ride with throbbing rhythm and electric funk at the bottom. In the last section, Webber’s rambling flute occupies a center position. In the final piece, “Exit Shivers”, an atmospheric doom metal-inspired work unfolds with quiet eeriness before a startling eruption.

Laugh Ash offers thought-provoking themes and improvisations that may not be immediately accessible but grow in interest with each listen. It's an unclassifiable, gripping album that pushes the boundaries of creative music in an original and compelling way.

Favorite Tracks:
02 - Remote Convivial ► 03 - Sweatered Webs (Hey Mom) ► 08 - Unyielding Daydream Welding