| The debut north american performance of peter brötzmann's quartet for the apocalypse, recorded live at the '98 fire in the valley festival. roy campbell's open & muted brass replaced kondo for these seventy uproarious minutes of group conjuring. only brötzmann delivers music of this immediacy & old testament purpose. violent & beautiful enough to rip you, briefly, out of history.
cadence magazine readers poll top recordings 1999
cadence magazine reviewer's choices, top 10 recordings 2000
coda magazine writers choice top ten recordings 2000
"Playing a concert with this quartet... I think I can say that we've never since we've known each other played a shitty concert. At least we hold quite a high average & that is a fine experience & makes me happy & enables me to keep going." --Brötzmann in the Wire
"After the fallout clears, it can only be said that those who want to witness one of THE heavyweight working groups in free music should seek out these exquisite sounds without hesitation." --Scott Hreha, Signal To Noise
"From the perspective of free-style jazz, it does not get much better than this, the group totally in sync for three untitled pieces recorded live at the Fire in the Valley jazz festival in Amherst, Massachusetts. From any perspective, this very tight, highly disciplined unit is one of the leading ventures in the history of avant-garde jazz." |