GILGONGO RECORDS

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LITTLE WOMEN - "Teeth" LP (GGGR-018).
to be released mid-March 2008
original art created by Mick Barr (of many amazing projects, such as Crom-Tech, Orthrelm, Ocrilim).

LITTLE WOMEN.
“Official BIO”: Brooklyn quartet Little Women formed two years ago to create music that blurs the line between structure and spontaneity. The group’s sound distilled from a broad range of influences that stretch from classic Chicago free jazz thru pop music, punk rock, math metal, and harsh noise. Little Women never stop pushing into new sonic territory: splitting overtones to create ghost notes, violently disassembling their instruments onstage, and attacking written and improvised material with equal ferocity. During performances band members often experience side-effects more commonly associated with prescription drugs such as nausea, dizziness, and internal bleeding. Little Women stomp all over genres, creating some of the most adventurous, in-the-moment, wrenchingly honest music of their generation.

"Teeth" is 20 minute piece, recorded in one long, single take, covering an impressive range of sound, and is an intense and dynamic presentation of what they are doing as a band. Art work by MICK BARR (Orthrelm, Crom-Tech, Ocrilim, etc).

Also: Members of Little Women have recorded and/or performed with some of the top names in jazz/improvised music such as: Anthony Braxton, Steve Lacy, Mark Dresser, Jim Black, Trevor Dunn, Dave Liebman, Joe Lovano, George Garzone, Chad Hugo (The Neptunes), Gerry Hemingway, Joe Morris, Matt Wilson, Michael Formanek, Mat Maneri, and Dave Koz. Members of Little Women also play in bands such as Zs, Extra Life, Cutter, Period, Archaeopteryx.

select reviews:

Auxiliary Out:
Little Women is a Brooklyn quartet, composed of a drummer, guitarist, and two saxophonists (one alto and one tenor). From that descriptor, I would certainly get the impression they are a jazz-dominated affair, and jazz certainly makes an appearance on the record, but there’s a lot other styles that come to play here as well. I’ve rarely heard so much music crammed into 20 minutes. I don’t mean that quantitatively, like 30 songs in twenty minutes or something, but the sheer complexity and range the band exhibits over the course of this 20 minute take is fucking mind boggling.

Upon entry, I am immediately hurled into zany skronk shredding, after about 30 seconds in, until a great authoritative, marching melody materializes which lasts for, say, another 30 seconds. This leads to a sad, beautiful but brief bit of lilting sax before the guitar/drums jump back in and start blasting away. The duo of saxophones begin playing a great melody line, vaguely in unison before spiraling off in different directions. Sorry for the play by play, but man, they have so many ideas they run through at a breakneck pace, it’s the only way I can really keep up. There’s a brief bout of silence before the saxophones creep their way back in. I really like the use of doubling the saxophonists employ because it dually focuses their presence while also creating an intriguing volatility to the sounds they make. Things freak out for a while, until the guys settle on a groove. There’s a really great rubber band sax line that works well against the spy movie-inspired guitar melody. Things begin to break apart a little until another great guitar riff moves in, staying to salvage the bit of coherence experienced a minute before. The drums catch on and the drummer just fuckin’ tears shit up. His solo is incredible in how he manages to propel the track (along with the guitar) and remain impeccable rhythmically while going absolutely nuts. After a sax solo the drum/guitar part returns, everything is fused and the whole crew forms like Voltron. I’m half-expecting the stylus to spark and my whole apartment to go up in flames. The very last bit is bizarre with a bunch of weird vocalizations—I don’t know if they got possessed by demon spirits or moved to Finland mid-track or what but a strange beast overtakes the band until the end groove.

This thing is a tour de force. In my saltier moods I can be a bit critical of the one-sided LP format, because if you’re gonna buy or put out a one-sided LP, that side had better fucking slay and a lot them don’t. However, this one does! This is the one that all the amateur one-sided LPs out there looking to make it big need to model themselves on. I don’t even know if my brain could take another side to this monster. There’s so much great stuff to absorb just in these brief twenty minutes and the record continues to excite me more each time I play it.

Ear-Conditioned Nightmare:
Wow, I did not expect that. Had heard of Little Women, but didn't quite know what I was gonna get in throwing this one on. Assumed this was going to be more of a Pocahaunted / Scorces type thing, but what's in a name eh? This doesn't even come close to the world of Louisa May Alcott.

Actually, Little Women is a quartet consisting of Travis Laplante, Ben Greenberg, Darius Jones and Jason Nazary (not Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy) and their whole deal is far closer to a mixture between Anthony Braxton, Last Exit and the Flying Luttenbachers. Opening with a full on blast of acoustic thunder (sans electric guitar, if that counts...), the album is as together as it gets. Hell, I'd even go so far as to say that this whole thing is composed, though I'm sure there's plenty of improvisation in there--if not it certainly manages to sound like it. The whole piece has an attention-deficient mobility to it, sometimes sounding like a mid-70s quartet, then sounding closer to Bloodcount before ending up with some Zappa-like post-rock workout. Of course none of these tags actually manage to sum up there sound at all, and frankly I'm not going to try and do it; there's too much here.

I can say that I'm fairly sure the group consists of two saxophones, a drummer, and a guitarist, and that all involved are super nasty at what they do. Turning on a dime, from mathy, rhythmic workouts to more textural, AACM or Studio Rivbea workouts, this is some serious stuff. The horns lead the way, but their backing (which, I should note, is often up front) works just as hard, managing to somehow weave these beautiful, driving melodies into more than their math-rock rhythms might suggest. The sheer versatility of these guys brings to mind Zorn's Naked City far more than it does Olson's Graveyards, though at points it does meander into the realm of acoustic panting, quietly murmuring along as horns are substituted for vocal fits and moments of Greg Kelley or Bill Dixon style bleats. Somehow, the group manages to always avoid sounding like their ripping anybody off though. Their abilities are too great and their intensions too honest. While I really can't begin to go into too much detail on it, this is one well worth snagging, especially for those with an ear for the freer end of the jazz spectrum. Some post post-fire music for the basement age. Wild.

Dusted:
Raucous jazz composition for quartet of reeds, guitar, and drums, blasting off with the same intensity as the Luttenbachers of yore (and fuggit, of today as well). Contemporary to Zs, but with the discipline of that ensemble all but gone. They’re not unmannered, just wild. Nice to hear the youngins still blasting out the Styrofoam in the crate. Shapes up nicely in the runtime allotted. Cool Mick Barr artwork as well.

Slug Magazine:
"Little Women = Crom Tech + Coughs + Health + Ornette Coleman
I dare any motherfucker on the block to comprehend this album—a speed-metal barrage of saxophones and uplifting climaxes reminding me of a modern-day Glen Branca. Simplistic by design, yet horrifically complex by execution, Little Women’s combination of free jazz with the Brooklyn-inspired speed of Mick Barr and the brutal intensity of Coughs puts more feeling and saturation into every track than most bands’ entire discography. Additionally, the wall of sound is immediately palatable to the ears, leaving the mass in between confused and scared to death." –Ryan Powe

Impose Magazine:
"Little Women is terrifying. Their first full-length, Teeth, is the kind of stuff that haunts Archie Shepp and Cecil Taylor in their worst nightmares. The Brooklyn quartet's saxophone bleats, beyond-angular guitar lines and purposeful, spastic drumming commands attention...you'll find incredible form and structure and even hints at traditional bebop tonality within Little Women's incredibly dense walls of sound, which effectively separates them from the bulk of free jazz/noise acts...Anyone who has seen this live has first-hand knowledge of terror."

Pop Matters:
There are arguably few meaningful divisions in experimental music, and so Brooklyn quartet Little Women have been called everything from punk to noise to jazz. The latter seems the most useful signifier here, as the four members all seem well versed in free-jazz technique (I’m guessing this is about 50-50 arrangement to improvisation) and quote little recognizable bits of bebop and lounge here and there, but the attitude seems to owe more to no wave spaz. Likewise, from what I can gather, the quartet splits their time between jazz clubs and warehouse punk shows; in either context they likely baffle a certain proportion of the audience. So it’s hardly surprising that the group shares members with other notables in the semi-populist avant-garde like Zs and Extra Life.

Teeth, the first entry in a planned one-a-year release schedule, the 19-minute piece (arbitrarily divided, on CD, into four sections) seems a good overview. Splitting its time between spiralling twin-sax freakouts, tightly coordinated jazz-as-thrash-metal noise blasts, and almost-smooth melody references (I may even have heard a little bit of klezmer in there), the recording is perhaps most notable for its balance of technical skill and concrete visceral force. It’d be a lot of fun to see kids mosh to this somewhere, and it doesn’t seem entirely unreasonable to think they might try. At the same time, there’s arguably not a whole lot of momentum and development across the long-form piece, at least until the final minutes, which may be questionable in their own way. Perhaps to preempt concerns that technique can sweep aside content in this sort of work, the quartet seem to be sobbing into their instruments in a gradual build to near-shrieking emotional-parody. It’s either the most wildly innovative or most tastelessly over-the-top moment, and as such may sum up the bands aggro-eclecticism quite nicely.

Feminist Review:
I had no idea what I was in for when I began to listen to this album. It is a piece broken into four nameless sections. The music starts out with a bunch of instruments together in a flurry, breaks into a halted rhythmic bit, and then slows to a lull right back into a frenzied pace. The horns and drums are a burst of instrumental energy and high pitched horns at the end of the first part make for an unnerving sound. With the second segment comes a more traditional jazzy sound, the horns opening with a lighter touch. Gusts of notes escalate into percussion with the speed of punk movement. The music grabs the listener’s ear and does not let go. In this part, stringed tones make for good contrast and more is called for.

There is more noise in the third installment, but it is tempered with purpose. A motive is repeated in horns with drum accompaniment. The horns give way, letting drums and guitar create their own thing. The horns come back in with the melody over top of percussion rhythm and then things slow down. There is a light, piercing and gradual build up; the drums are gone and then wailing takes over. All instruments are brought back in for an energetic storm which abruptly ends to make way for the final piece. There is a discordant chorus of horns blowing, as if they are practicing for a ship in the fog, but haven’t quite reached that level of smooth sound yet. Guttural male voices seep into the landscape and slowly rise into cries, yells, and indescribable sounds that morph into grunt like growls which taper off to end the album. Words can’t describe the experience. Jazz? Punk? Noise? Labels aren’t necessary; just give the Teeth a listen and judge it for yourself. I’m more than glad I did.

Dark Forces Swing (live review):
Jazz is a music polluted by names. This might seem like a fine, irrelevant or wrongheaded point, but it actually might turn a lot of people off. There's something awesome about a band name--The Misfits, Samhain, etc. It's like the name of a gang, or a sports team. A personal name could signify anything: a politician, a captain of industry, etc. Unless you happen to have a really awesome name (one of the few aesthetic virtues I'll concede to John Zorn), it's just not all that cool to perform under your official title in the world. Not that there aren't a million rock musicians who do this, but there are far less jazz musicians who go in for the band-name thing (without the crucial distinction of affixing their name to the beginning, i.e., JoBob Jenkins's Rebop Allstars).

Anyway, not to overstate things, but the topic's on my mind since I saw two outstanding jazz groups this weekend, both anteing up rock-style and going by a bona fide Band Name. I feel much cooler writing that I heard great sets by Little Women (pic'd above) and Ideal Bread than saying the same about Travis Laplante, Darius Jones, Ben Greenberg and Jason Nazary; or, for that matter, about Josh Sinton, Kirk Knuffke, Reuben Radding and Tomas Fujiwara.

Li'l' Women I heard as part of a concert that I also participated in. This took place Saturday at the awesome mansionlike Bushwick home of several of my friends, where there were some art installations going on; wish I had the link to the related website, but I can't dig it up. Anyway, my recently formed band Blouse--me drumming, Laal Shams on (unholy, shrieking) vocals and, in this incarnation, Tony Gedrich on bass--made our live debut and put on what I felt was a successful performance. In any event we had a lot of fun. Several other great sets occurred--including a new duo featuring Alexander P. from the excellent Animal, with whom STATS shares the Tommy's Tavern "stage" this coming Friday the 13th.

Anyway, the Women were the headliners though and they killed me the hardest. If you've not experienced them you should hear them live, definitely (they're at Zebulon in Wmsburg this coming Wednesday, 6/11), though their debut CD/LP, Teeth--available via the Sockets label-- ain't shabby at all. Basically this is noise-punk-jazz, performed by individuals who understand--would you believe it?--noise, punk and jazz. Crossover/fusion/what have you, it's more difficult than it sounds. You've got Mahavishnu Orchestra... and maybe that's it, in terms of ensembles who have truly comprehended and internalized the whole balls vs. improvisational acumen thing; it's rarely happened RIGHT since hardcore blew things wide open. No particular need to flog this horse more, but no, I'm not a Naked City fan.

[After thinking a bit on this, I feel that I also ought to mention Last Exit, whom I enjoy but not to the degree that I feel I'd want to, given my deep love for both Sonny Sharrock and Peter Brotzmann, as well as Black Flag, who most certainly got the punkjazz thing dead right on works such as "The Process of Weeding Out." Coptic Light, sadly defunct magmalike free-rock trio, also deserves mention for furthering the concept of modern fusion.]

Little Women though is an extremely HARD band. Last night in an unforgiving concrete basement, they were punishing. The music is built of spastic splatterpunk riffs--intricate yet whiplash-bestowing--played by the quartet (Laplante on tenor, Jones on alto, Greenberg on guitar and Nazary on drums), followed by various group atomizations. There are elements of necromantic Free Jazz at work here, certainly, but what really excites me about the band is the way they emphasize all kinds of subgroupings and plotted freedoms.

Last night, for example, we got some absolutely brutal and ultradense sound sprays from Greenberg (if you don't know him, he is and has been in like 6000 vanguard aggressive bands, e.g., Cutter and Zs and Archaeopteryx) duetting with Nazary. But the realest sparks I thought came from Laplante and Jones, who have an insane mental and sonic lockup. They "duo" in the way that soloists "solo," namely they've perfected a method wherein they can both rocket forward headlong and intertwine with absolutely sound logic yet without obvious response cues or cliched interactivity. They play OVER each other more than WITH each other; watching them play--often actually staring each other down---is like watching two rams in one of those epic eternal headbutt battles. Constant, lavalike flow but both voices are there and distinct. Don't even get me started on the ultraperverse, somehow weirdly Pissed Jeans-esque sobbing-and-vomiting-into-upturned-horns piece they use to end their sets. Last night, Greenberg hit the lights during this and it was like an actual haunted house. Scary and incredible, the REAL punkjazz and most certainly an example of a moniker-earning BAND rather than a collection of players, etc.