Mette Rasmussen/Tashi Dorji/Tyler Damon — To The Animal Kingdom (2017, Trost)
Hot off the press from Austrian label, Trost Records, To The Animal Kingdom is a blistering release from a fantastic trio of Mette Rassmussen, Tashi Dorji, and Tyler Damon. Recorded live in Toronto during the trio’s brief Canadian tour in the summer of 2016, the opening bars of the title track prod, poke, and playfully tease the listener before exploding into a joyful cacophony that straddles a meandering and rapturous line between disgruntled no wave and John Coltrane’s final works with Rashied Ali. “To Life” features Rasmussen’s serrated, almost Dolphy-esque playing, which invokes hardboiled film noir chase scenes and/or the turtlenecked basement hipsters of yesteryear, spitting, salivating, and flippantly flicking their cigarettes with disdain, all the while losing their shit behind the impenetrable façade of cool. Concurrently, Damon and Dorji’s equally fervid sonic quills shred the air ragged, making for a melange of something that’s not quite jazz, not quite punk, and not quite noise rock, yet would fit square in the middle of a Venn diagram of the three. The closer, “To The Heavens and Earths” is a slowly crescendoing, jerky, free jazz number. At times reminiscent of a less bombastic Last Exit, the piece builds to it’s lurching apex, only for the bottom to drop out. Just like a bird whose sprightly song has ceased, the ensemble briefly take stock of all that surrounds, before fluttering off into the vastness of the world.
Marginal Brevity 