1 CD – Import
“Connection” is the fifth full length album from the trio Ceramic Dog.
Marc Ribot, Shahzad Ismaily, and Ches Smith have created a work that doesn’t resolve the tension between their punk/new music/free jazz points of departure and the pop ambitions they’ve always buried beneath the surface… so much as push to the breaking point.
Tracks such as “That’s Entertainment” devours/deconstructs the Hollywood standard’s psychotic cliches, while “Ecstasy” – whose Boogaloo inflected groove recalls Ribot’s earlier work with the Cubanos Postizos – run up against post-apocalyptic landscapes and minimalist polytonal disco.
On “Connection”, they gamble with/for it like there’s no tomorrow. Along for the ride are a few longtime Ribot comrades Syd Straw, Anthony Coleman, and Oscar Noriega, along with more recent collaborators Greg Lewis and James Brandon Lewis.