Sunny & the marauders slam another tidal-wave of epidemic outpouring & ecstatic igneous accompanied by less draconian efforts of emotional Free-Jazz in the Avant-Garde & Spiritual vicinities. The four tracks on this CD were smashed out of the legendary 1969 BYG-Actuel sessions.This album falls in behind the incomparable “Sunshine” opus & drafts in bad-man Byrad Lancaster, maniac Kenneth Terroade & the greatMalachi Favors on stand-up bass. I have to say, for me it’s a shame it’s not purely emotive extravagance all the way, as these guys, agitated to an apogee of almost unimaginable aggravation & fuming by Sunny’s percussive zealous zeitgeist & excess – produce some of the very’ very finest & purifingly extreme & exhilarating FreeJazz/Music/Noise/Sound I have been washed out to the depths by.There are/were some “New Music” musicians, & actually it’s not that many at all, who get perhaps so entrenched into the advanced phases of the Avant-Garde ether/wilderness/abyss that it really stops/annuls all reference to musicality, becoming very literally an issue of noise/sound or indeed “energy” in the most abject of definitions. Roscoe Mitchell is a leading exponent, also the starkly unique guitarist Michael Gregory Jackson, sometime creating sonic’s that have absolutely no reference at all in the familiar “musical” language/phonetic identity/alphabet due to their profoundly misshapen & amorphous construct/appearance. I am absolutely not just talking about noisy or confusing conduct, there’s a very distinct, rarely accessed territory & unorthodox approach to sonic momentum/construct, almost as if all the building blocks are excluded & an entirely new form/matter/mode of communication by noise is established. Whatever! Sunny Murray is all up in that, & his “cymbal noise” hurricanes that are used on the Actuel sessions are a very good example. It’s just total noise….it’s also almost ceaseless & it’s predominantly impenetrable & linear. It reminds me of watching a violent ocean just surging & swelling. Constant motion & power. It’s really like pure energy & momentum, just churning forth/out. Anyway, my point reallyI think is how much this tremendous turbulence just riles the horn-players beyond “acceptable” thresholds. I think Murray propels, inflames & incites his cohorts into some super-sonic ejection. I think his singular extended eruption goads these guys to push harder than ever & knocks the whole thing out of the stratosphere, like a detonator. It’s some of the most bodacious shit I have ever’ ever heard! The two “calmer” tracks – An Even Break & Complete Affection offer their own microcosm of intricacy, but next to such staggering clarion I find them almost redundant (they aren’t at all, but personally I rarely play them & skip straight to the storm). Amazing playing from everyone (unfortunately the bass is very buried & suffers on clarity with such urgency & kinetics running riot). Terroade & Lancaster – together are unbelievable as you can imagine (&*^$!!!). Classic madness, to flip the gravity on ya’ world!!

Rekd – 1969

Label – BYG/Actuel (quality CD reissue by Sunspots)