Music Of The Modern White

Chronique

Like many before them, Zs fought long and hard to free themselves from the repression of the academy. While they still played from music stands even as a trio, unlike many before them their music successfully unshackled itself from any version of the Man that might've been keeping it down. Music of the Modern White -- partially tongue-in-cheek, partially accurate -- found the Brooklyn trio's uncompromising composition in full force. In "MMW I, Pt. 1," drummer Ian Antonio lays a bed of ominous gunshot pulses before saxophonist Sam Hillmer blows in slowly, with all the liberated avant spirituality of late-'60s free jazz. His tones are soon subsumed in a drone, Antonio disappearing entirely until there is nothing but blissful sound. The music remains without drums for the duration of the album's first side, turning into even more abrasive and perfectly transcendent saxophone wailing during the suite's second part, and chopped rhythms not unlike their fellow structurally dense Brooklyn noiseniks in Sightings. The disc's second suite contains three rhythmically manic excursions, painted with a gentle (though no less insistent) tom-tom on "MMW II, Pt. 1" (with more Hillmer blowing and guitar noise), and an extended-technique groove on "Pt. 2" with Hillmer and guitarists Charlie Looker and Ben Greenberg pulling stark harmonic rhythms from their instruments. On "Pt. 3," Antonio finally gets into the act, swelling his snare rhythms to the speed of swollen insects before finally resolving into a final blast of saxophone and sweet nothingness.
© Jesse Jarnow /TiVo