This CD contains 72 minutes of intense, fast, articulate improvised music featuring superhuman drummer Weasel Walter in duos with some of his favorite contemporary sparring partners: Mary Halvorson (guitar), Alex Ward
(guitar/clarinet), Darius Jones (alto saxophone) and Peter Evans (trumpet). Over the course of ten action-packed cuts, a stunning array of musical ideas are investigated as well as some serious instrumental virtuosity. This music is clear and articulate with a complex sense of structure and interplay.
Drummer Weasel Walter is best known as leader of and primary composer for the long-running cult band
The Flying Luttenbachers. Living in Chicago, the Bay Area, and most recently New York, Walter has spent the past two decades bridging numerous factions within the experimental music scene. He has performed with seminal noise-rock acts like Lake Of Dracula, Burmese and XBXRX, maintaining all the while his career as a free improviser. Walter has collaborated with luminaries like Marshall Allen, Evan Parker, Henry Kaiser, Jim O’Rourke, Mick Barr, Ken Vandermark, Kevin Drumm, Vinny Golia and many others. Walter is also a current member the technical metal band Behold . . . The Arctopus and the no-wave trio Cellular Chaos
Guitarist Mary Halvorson has been active in the New York music scene since 2002. In addition to leading her own bands, she is a veteran of Anthony Braxton’s ensembles and has performed with Tim Berne, Trevor Dunn, Tony Malaby, Marc Ribot and John Tchicai, amongst others. Mary is “the most original jazz guitarist to emerge this decade,” (Peter Margasak, Chicago Reader).
In addition to leading his own ensembles, classically-trained trumpeter Peter Evans performs with groups ranging from terrorist-bebop unit Mostly Other People Do the Killing to the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE). Other collaborators include Steve Beresford, Keiji Haino, Jim Black, Evan Parker and Christian Marclay.
Saxophonist Darius Jones is a critically acclaimed bandleader whose 2009 AUM Fidelity release “Man’ish Boy (A Raw and Beautiful Thing” topped year-end critics lists as well as garnering overwhelming praise in publications from The New York Times to The Wire. Jones also performs in the brutal, rock-influenced band Little Women. He recently released an album of duos with pianist Matthew Shipp.
London-based instrumentalist Alex Ward first became known as a prodigious, teenaged clarinettist during the mid-80s in an association with guitar legend Derek Bailey. Since then, he has added guitar to his arsenal and has appeared with a wide range of players including Eugene Chadbourne, Joe Morris and Joe McPhee.
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