Free jazz is also frequently called "fire music," so it's amusing that one of the genre's most prolific and well-regarded practitioners, saxophonist
Mats Gustafsson, has named his new trio
Fire!. His blowing is as fierce and raucous as ever, a point on a line that travels through
Albert Ayler,
Archie Shepp,
Pharoah Sanders,
Joe McPhee,
Charles Gayle,
David S. Ware, and other non-Scandinavians. He's also playing Fender Rhodes here, though, and is backed by Johan Berthling of
Tape on bass, electric guitar, and Hammond organ, and Andreas Werliin on drums, and a female vocalist also appears on "But Sometimes I Am." That extensive list of instruments should make it clear that this is not a fully improvised blowing session -- the organ and electric piano parts are overdubbed, though it's all seamless.
You Liked Me Five Minutes Ago features only four tracks, one of which, "Can I Hold You for a Minute?," passes the 13-minute mark, while "But Sometimes..." is nearly 18 minutes long. The title piece, by contrast, is a four-minute exploration of a single riff, all low sax notes and handclaps over complex but swinging drums, at disc's end. Overall, this is a more meditative disc than one might expect based on familiarity with Gustafsson's primary group, the jazz-meets-garage-rock trio
the Thing; while there's plenty of blare to be heard, and waves of electronic noise to boot, there are also long, atmospheric passages of bass throb and organ drone. Recommended, but not if one has irritable neighbors. ~ Phil Freeman