Enter Humcrush

Oh, yes! The very first seconds of the music on Enter Humcrush (ShhPuma 030CD) let you know that this duo means business! I don't remember having heard either before, but no matter, because this is a music that both erases the path in front of it and redraws new lines to replace that which has disappeared.

Stale Storlokken appears on Fender Rhodes, synth and electronics; Thomas Stronen is on drums and electronics.

What you get is a very electric-electronic set of hard avant rock-jazz freedom, a sort of evolved psychedelia the way things are in the constant process of panning out today.

Stronen steps forward with the busy rock-funk-jazz depth that you might (and rightly so) trace back to Jack DeJohnette on Miles' "Live at Fillmore." It is a further evolution of what playing time can mean when it is dealt out in strait-eighth rock measure, only smearing bar lines and extending the variations endlessly as bop drummers like Klook learned to do with swing.

And Stale has much to say, freely and bent with fuzzi-cosmic grit or at times cleanly coming forth in sound yet retaining an outside styling both inventive and soulful.

This is one of those albums that asserts and realizes much that heretofore was somewhat latent in avant-free jazz-rock. And it kicks it! Oh, it does!

This is music to check out for sure! Happily recommended.