The band features the dueling harmonicas of front-man Wade Schuman and his sparring partner Randy Weinstein, funky tuba powerhouse Joseph Daly, virtuoso guitarists Bob Jay, Jon Sholle, and Dan Hovey, and drummer Scott Veenstra.HAZMAT holds down a smoldering groove behind Schumans raspy, bluesy voice and passionately energetic stage presence.While they play mostly originals, their cover versions are choice and eclectic, including songs by Slim Gaillard, Jimmy Rogers, Jaybird Coleman, and Irving Berlin.
Sound Check In China (3:11) Box of Breath finds Hazmat Modine deep in command of their self-created idiom swimming in international waters but never far from the American coast. Malian riffs infuse with Mississippi mud and Tin Pan Alley, stretching the bands roots aesthetic to include notes of hibiscus and the buzz of mosquitos. There are songs about death, striving, hoarding, time and the march of dementia. Soaring horns and wailing harmonica are joined by the clang of modern India and the murmur of China, a distillation of Hazmat Modines travels through time, place and sound. Throughout, the CD weaves lyrics that reflect on the times and troubles of the world we currently live in. This is the bands most mature and original album yet, something so Hazmatian that it needs its own genre to define it. Features special guest musicians Balla Kouyate, Mazz Swift, Mark Stewart, Charlie Burnham Son of Dave. Man Trouble Its a fairly good bet you wont hear another record like Bahamut any time soon -- because there isnt one. Hazmat Modine tap into the deepest veins of raw, unpolluted prewar blues and ancient jazz, then whip them up in a blender, tossing in strains of Caribbean calypso and ska, Eastern European klezmer and Balkan brass, Middle Eastern mystery, and more than a few unidentifiable elements that just somehow fit. The result is music that sounds at once ageless and primeval, authentically indigenous and inexplicably otherworldly, familiar and unlike anything else. Hazmat Modine revolve around the vision of Wade Schuman, a virtuoso on the diatonic and chromatic harmonicas and a variety of guitars who then mixes and matches his machines to a variety of other instruments till he arrives at that place his head has been visiting. Those instruments include the commonplace (drums, trumpets), the unexpected (Hawaiian steel guitar, lots of tubas), and those youre just not going to find down at the local music shop (cimbalom, zamponia, claviola). ![]() Sometimes, as in Lost Fox Train, hes on his own, unreeling a thrilling solo harmonica piece that nudges the instrument out past the town limits. Alone again on Ugly Rug, its just Schuman and his lute guitar. For It Calls Me (on which Schumans usually rough-hewn vocals slide up the scale and recall the late Alan Blind Owl Wilson of Canned Heat), Everybody Loves You, and Man Trouble, he brings in the legendary Tuvan throat singers Huun-Huur-Tu, whose amphibian warblings may or may not have met up with tuba and Hawaiian steel guitar before, but probably never within the same song. If all of this sounds a bit deliberate and precious, the relieving news is that its not. Hazmat Modine are unconventional in every sense, but theirs is listener-friendly music, nothing that requires a degree in ethnomusicology to enjoy. Hazmat Modine Bahamut Mp3 Skin Jug BandMany other bands, from Dan Hicks His Hot Licks to the Cheap Suit Serenaders, and from the Jim Kweskin Jug Band to Squirrel Nut Zippers, have mined forgotten caves of Americana before, but Hazmat Modines widened the playing field here, taking the resurrection international on this stunning debut.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |