New York-based saxophonist, Haas, has had an unconventional artistic trajectory, playing with Canadian new wave group Martha and the Muffins, before becoming part of the 1980s downtown scene and collaborating with the likes of John Zorn, Thurston Moore, Fred Frith and Zeena Parkins. This solo album shows just as much of a quixotic disregard for the norm. For each track, Haas lays down heavily processed rhythms using the taal tarang – a kind of electronic tabla – which he then overdubs with live sax and electronics improvisations. Impressively, he manages to make each track feel like a living, real-time dialogue between the beats and his responses. So, on the title track, wobbly, sub-aquatic rhythms provoke neat, cheekily loquacious sax phrases; while, on ‘The Rush To Buy Heaven’, the merciless pounding of robotic machinery goads the sax into a low growl, like a dangerously wounded beast. It's an object lesson in how to reconcile technology and spontaneity with truly creative results.