The Milo Fine Free Jazz Ensemble featuring Steve Gnitka: Earlier Outbreaks of Iconoclasm

Rating: ★★★

Record and Artist Details

Musicians:

Steve Gnitka (el g)
Milo Fine (d, bowed cymbals, p, prep p,

Label:

Emanem

September/2015

Catalogue Number:

5206

RecordDate:

29 December 1976, 20 August 1977, 21 April 1978

The band name is a joke, of course, but Milo Fine can perhaps lay more claim than most to being a one-man ensemble. This double CD collects three albums – Hah! and The Constant Extension Of Inescapable Tradition, both from 1977, and When I Was Five Years Old I Predicted Your Whole Life, recorded 1978 and never previously released – across which Fine takes turns investigating drums, piano and clarinet with equal alacrity. At the piano, he veers from exploring echoing innards and frame to deranged saloon bar sass and even melodramatic Cecil Taylorisims, while his clarinet style is simultaneously bubbly and scratchy, like a soda full of ground glass. Steve Gnitka complements these approaches with subtle shades of electric guitar, finger-dabbing the strings and rubbing the neck with a restlessly inquisitive attitude. But it's the hyperactive guitar and drum duos that most come alive, with a raggedy clatter and fizzing energy that sits exactly half way between US free jazz and Euro improv.

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