Album Notes

Named after the acrobatic martial arts approach espoused by Grandmaster “Iron” Kim, and taking playful aim at deranged North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il, Iron Kim Style’s eponymously titled debut CD is a totally improvised outing that stands in stark contrast to most specimens of the free-improv genre. The quintet has no purist axes to grind here but gleefully blends structure and abstraction, lyrical melodies and scalding noise, wicked funk and weightless balladry, jazz phrasing and bracing experimentalism into a rich and meaty sonic stew. The resulting music frequently sounds as if it were composed, due to the finely tuned listening skills of the participants after years of collective music-making.

Drawing on influences as diverse as Olivier Messiaen, electric-period Miles Davis, Terje Rypdal, John Abercrombie, heavy rock, and North Korean martial music, Iron Kim Style conjures spontaneous sonic epics that encompass everything from stomping grooves to grinding noise to passages of eerie beauty.