The second album of this winning collaboration between the legendary independent post-punk group and avant garde cellist
Tom Cora sees the group continue to indulge their collective love for European folk themes and free improvisation. At moments, the stuttering, angular
Gang of Four sound rises up, and the group carries a stilted groove through the extended pieces, when their trademark skittering guitars walk a line between artful control and willful chaos, recalling their explosive
Crass-like '80s sound. While the delicate melodious folk patters, curious improvised sound-searching marked a new tangent the group followed into a total free-form improvisation inspired by the likes of avant-garde jazz associates
Han Bennink and
Misha Mengelberg. They never left their punk roots behind ,however.
The Ex is one of the genre's most interesting and inventive groups.