The Thing with Jim O’Rourke
“Shinjuku Growl”
(Smalltown Superjazz)

The Thing with Otomo Yoshihide
“Shinjuku Crawl”
(Smalltown Superjazz)

Mats Gustafsson alto and baritone saxophones; Otomo Yoshihide or Jim O’Rourke guitar; Ingebrigt H?ker Flaten bass; Paal Nilssen-Love drums.

The Thing has been mutating again. Having started out in homage to Don Cherry, and then collaborating with saxophonist Joe McPhee, the trio changed lanes in 2005 with the attention-grabbing ?Garage’ album. There, and with the collaborative Two Bands and a Legend side project, they rocked the spirit of garage rock pioneers The Sonics, and plugged into contemporary indie rock by covering cherry-picked tunes by, among others, PJ Harvey, White Stripes, and Yeah Yeah Yeahs (of which track Pete Marsh, writing for the BBC, said “forget Cream, this is what a power trio should be like”; and amen to that). By 2007 the Thing had moved on, albeit with an occasional backwards glance. On “Action Jazz” (2007) and “Bag It” (2009) the indie cover choices were more left-field, and mashed up against spirited but respectful re-workings of jazz standards by Albert Ayler, Ornette Coleman and Duke Ellington. I shouldn’t oversimplify; there were tunes by both Ayler’s sometime trumpeter Norman Howard and Peter Br?tzmann on “Garage”, but this part of the groups’ aesthetic was rather underplayed at the time. On the two ?Shinjuku’ albums, however, the Thing moves beyond reinterpretation to operate in all-horizons-open improv mode.

Both albums were recorded at Shinjuku Pit Inn, Tokyo. ““Shinjuku Growl” was captured in February 2008, “Shinjuku Crawl” fourteen months later, in April 2009. Each date brings a Tokyo-based guitarist into the mix: American-born Jim O’Rourke on “Shinjuku Growl”, and native son Otomo Yoshihide on “Shinjuku Crawl”. Both are multi-instrumentalists for whom the guitar is a sound-source to be treated with the innocence of a new discovery, while retaining an appreciation of its legacy. Both are masters of non-idiomatic improvisation who remain always identifiable even as they seek out new contexts for expression.

“Shinjuku Crawl, First Attempt” comes together tentatively, around a patter of mallets and sax flutters, and then Otomo Yoshihide’s first loose frettings. But when the Thing grows animated Yoshihide responds by unleashing contiguous lines of molten electric guitar, saturated in distortion. A lull in a Nilssen-Love solo marks the transition to “Second Attempt” (the titles are somewhat misleading, as the ?attempts’ are continuous). Yoshihide shadows an undefined Gustafsson melody, and H?ker Flaten’s attentive bowed bass mirrors them both. Yoshihide manages to achieve a sense of clarity even as he becomes more bullish, and the Thing is soon on scalding form for a blast of righteous freedom that lasts until the long, hushed diminuendo of the discursive “Third Attempt”. The Thing still attain peaks of intensity thereafter, but Gustafsson remains remarkably restrained throughout, and Yoshihide approaches his contribution as if it were a film soundtrack, crafting a coherent sequence of richly allusive improvisations. We’re now 40 minutes in, with 25 to go, and far from burnout. The brief “Uramado (Thank You Mr. Fukuoka)” features some beautifully subtle group interplay, but there’s a change of tack for the two-part “Dori Dugout”. After an opening scrimmage between Yoshihide and Nilssen-Love there’s a lengthy, bullish, electrically charged tussle, with Gustafsson playing what might be his slide saxophone, sounding very much like Br?tzmann on tarogato. Otomo adopts a more rebarbative stance, prompting Gustafsson to respond with bellicosity. A subsequent series of taut, extended breakdowns for solo or sub-group exploration contains much of the most arresting sonic detail on the album. The final crescendo sees Gustafsson straining at the leash of Yoshihide’s sustains, which are potent enough to keep even the rhythm section from combusting.

On “Shinjuku Growl”, the 22 minutes of “If Not Ecstatic, We Replay” begins with exploratory probing, until Gustafsson’s sax hauls itself into the mix along a sequence of torpid bass notes. A disputatious exchange with O’Rourke then breaks into a tight-throated collective wail. The sax then drops away to reveal an elemental core of bass and drums roiling away and O?Rourke, scalded, starts ripping out taut, attenuated wires of sound. The core trio then launch into a free jazz free-for-all, with O’Rourke grinding out sonics. The sensitively titled “Half a Dog Can’t Even Take a Shit” carries on in a similarly invigorating vein, but gets really interested half-way through, when the intensity eases off to reveal the fascinating dynamics of Ingebrigt H?ker Flaten and Paal Nilssen-Love. They demonstrate some of that old garage spirit, playing at such a lick that Gustafsson, on re-entry, has only to surf their momentum. O’Rourke, who has been keeping a low profile, really rips into this track’s finale. The tamped-down, coagulating start to “I Can’t, My Mouth is Already Full” befits its title, but there’s a flash of intensity before O’Rourke and Gustafsson settle down to a hushed duet. In a coda, Gustafsson tongue-flutters to the toll of a small gong, sounds suspended in silence. For the closing “Shinjuku Growl” everyone is ready to let rip again, and do so for the next seven minutes, then decelerate masterfully around a core ripple of picked guitar. Gustafsson concludes with a melodic saxophone outro as Nilssen-Love’s drumming falls away to a delicate patter.

Tim’s Star Ratings - 3.5 per album.

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