ALBUM REVIEW: Poly-math – Zenith


 

Trippy, dippy, and totally mind-bendy are the first things I think of when I hear the new release from Poly-math entitled Zenith (Nice Weather For Airstrikes). The opening track and the title track have this bombastic, slightly discordant saxophone that blends beat poetry, jazz, and psychedelia. Poly-math reminds me of the jazz fusion jam bands of the seventies and eighties; think Dixie Dregs, but with saxophones. Chris Olsen kills it on saxophone, by the way. Every song is elevated by his playing. If you play saxophone in a band, Olsen’s playing on this album is where you want to end up in your playing. 

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ALBUM REVIEW: Locean – Chav Anglais


You can call it Punk; you can call it Noise; you can, if you will call it Beat poetry. One thing that Manchester UK experimentalists Locean do produce is a thrilling, vibrant energy and Chav Anglais (Artificial Head Records), the band’s first full-length album, is full of such attitude: from crashing strings and rhythms to sparse, protesting, dominant sexuality.Continue reading


Enablers – Zones


Most people’s experience of ‘spoken word’ music, outside of the Rap genre, is Jim Morrison‘s ‘American Prayer’. Beat Poetry, for this is essentially the format, is a hugely involving yet highly personal style which often resounds with the listener. This is most definitely the case with Enablers: a San Francisco post-Punk four-piece whose beguiling, occasionally fiery music is set to the poetry and narrative of frontman Pete Simonelli.Continue reading