Search - Hazmat Modine :: Bahamut (Dig)

An Indescribably Novel and Terrific CD

L. Rap | Massachusetts | 06/01/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Finding this CD was like stepping through a looking glass into a strange new world where the blues is a vital art form, world music has a beat, pop is interesting, jug bands have something to say, and the harmonica is an expressive musical instrument. I'm there, I'm listening and looking around, and I just can't believe it's real - but it must be, because I keep playing it, again and again.



There's been lots of web comment on the many and eclectic influences of this new/debut CD from the equally varied fans of this NYC band known for their great live performances. It's all true and clever, but this CD is still just way more than the sum of its parts. May God and Wilson Pickett forgive me for saying so, but this CD has . . . soul. It has a real soul that lives and breathes and makes about a dozen crappy, tired genres wake up, hug each other and dance. They dance together for the first time, and I suspect right now they are out having sex somewhere. I just hope they have kids."

Bahamut Stands Alone

Sir Charles Panther | Alexandria, Virginny, USandA | 11/22/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Thanks, public radio, for introducing me to this band and this release; the snippets of music I heard had me buying this CD that evening.



So, how to encapsulate this release? This is a damp, dark and swampy thing, a kind of Tom Waits meets Squirrel Nut Zippers meet City Lights Orchestra. I'm hearing all kinds of things in this music: Captain Beefheart, Brave Combo's Kiss of Fire, They Might Be Giants, even a little bit of Eno/Byrnes' My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. It's harmonica-powered delta blues, New Orleans horn orchestra jazz, old-timey dusty curtain stage music, with distinctive non-mainstream instruments and arrangements dropping in stealthily to add surprisingly effective texture and depth.



The title? It's a reference to an animist cosmology explained quickly on Wikipedia, and explored poetically by Tim Pratt in a poem you can find easily enough online. Basically, all creation floats as a mote in the eye of the indescribable, incomprehensible Bahamut. The title track gives you the story.



Instrumentation. This is a primarily acoustic release, with just a little electrics. There are guitars aplenty, and lots of great horn arrangements. And the bottom end is filled out nicely with that reverberating contrabass saxophone and the tuba, doing everything but the predictable pooting oompah, even soloing. And there is the cimbalon, zamponia, Hawaiian steel guitar, electric banjitar, claviola, and bass marimba, all filling in and playing wonderful roles. If you're a harmonica player or fan, this release will spin your gears as fast as they've ever gone. You've got the basic harmonic, and the diatonic and chromatic harmonica. There's distinct soloing--nothing but on "Lost Fox Train"--and the mouth harp just doing its bit to bolster the harmonies.



The first track's live introduction of "Ahz-ah-maht Mah-deen" had me thinking immediately of the Senor Coconut intro from El Baile Aleman. And then the band slides into a horn-acoustic, yelp-inflected reggae, sounding a lot like an up-funked "St. James Infirmary," a strutting dirge from a man too cool to tone down his mojo, even in abject apology. The music had me sold on the album well before the vocal rolled on in.



The mid-tempo "It Calls Me" starts with the simple country guitar and a falsetto lead, and right at the point where you just know that Jew's harp is going to come in for punctuation, you get Tuvan throat singing instead. It's a strangely similar sound, yet distinctly different, lending an unexpected yet highly fitting texture.



The title track starts with a clear, almost rocking beat. The vocals start relatively lucid, but slowly devolve to a Tom Waits/Captain Beefheart delivery. You've got a contrabass sax solo, with the bridge of narrated text describing Bahamut. Really interesting and fun stuff throughout.



"Broke My Baby's Heart" is another steady blues grinder. And then without warning in the middle the vocal takes a jetpack ride to ultra-falsetto. You've even forgotten you're listening to a live performance until you hear the crowd reacting to the vocal fireworks, much like the falsetto run in Zappa's "Love of My Life" on You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 4.



"Steady Roll" is a great blues piece, a smooth, ahem, horny, shuffling foot-stomper from the opening bars. The highly nuanced Schuman vocal is excellent, the perfect complement to the arrangement and subject.



"Everybody Loves You" opens like a Native American chant, until it becomes yet another deceptively traditional blues piece, with inter-chorus sounds reminding me of a traditional Irish ballad.



"Dry Spell" has an opening string vibe which reminded me immediately of the theme song from Ennio Morricone's theme to Sergio Leone's classic Once Upon A Time In The West: The Original Soundtrack Recording. It's got that same plodding equine tempo. Then the vocals come in, and it's the parched, dusty rainlessness of the sepia-tinged vistas of O Brother, Where Art Thou? As the pan flute puffs out punctuation, there comes the incredible lyric, "My mind's a hazy blur/My parched lips are cracked/All is dessication/Late afternoon heart attacks."



Track 12, "Who Walks in When I Walk Out?" starts as toe-tapping funky klezmer, an apparently pseudo-traditional arrangement which then slides right into that standard blues question, with some Hawaiian lap steel, harmonica and saxophone soloing in the middle. You think the tune's done, and then you get a cool drumkick restart followed by some really fun soloing on the out-tro.



The album's closer, "Man Trouble," is a long one at 11:11, live no less, but it goes by amazingly quickly. It's pure blues, but with some distinct throat singing punching it up, the sound of the cicadas in the trees, the bullfrogs down in the bayou, the subconscious wail of the singer's very soul, the sounds and colors of the story's context.



Yeah, that Tuvan throat singing. I'm reminded of Pat Metheny's use of Thai royal court singers in the opening track of We Live Here, creating a distinct and attention-grabbing sound that then melds seamlessly with the more conventional sound of mainstream instruments. HM is doing the same thing here, as the throat singing builds slowly in the backgrounds, a feral-mystic chorus, then glides to the front of the arrangement.



Then there's the off-the-wall fun/strange aspects, like the snippet from the Bah-ston woman who thought she'd been abducted by aliens when she woke up on the living floor with her husband's car parts as an intro to the slow instrumental, "Almost Gone." And there's the concluding "hidden" 15th track which is a recorded message from Morris telling us our unit is ready for pickup. Yeah, I listened intently, not wanting to miss the little points, looking for the meanings in placement and context.



To wrap it all up, I've heard nothing like this in years. It's blues fusion, world fusion, traditional music and instruments made current. It's overwhelmingly familiar in its overall tone, yet highly mysterious and unexpected in many of the arrangements. It's wonderfully evocative music, an absolute treasure for the music lover."

Completely brilliant. Album of the Year.

Frank Mallis | 05/30/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Wow.



Google 'Hazmat Modine', find their website, seek out more information.



The hair on the back of my neck rises up *every* time I hear the title track.



To try and classify this album under a handy-hyphenated genre name is to do it a disservice.



Funky blues harp harmonicas and fat-ass grumbly sax that hit so hard it just hurts.



Vocals that go from sweet and playful to possessed and howling, with lyrics that are enchanted.



Originals & covers. The comfortable and familiar blended with sounds that fell from the moon.

An album that's reminiscent of favorites from your past, but is closer to that thing you thought you saw once, heard once, so long ago - - or did you just imagine it?



Oh, and smoky mystic klezmer cymbalom careening into hot jazz.

Oh, and the occasional drone of Tuvan throat singers, but where's it going now...?!



- - and how does it pull off being so goofy and hot and fun, and strike me as being so spiritual?



If my review has gone loopy, it must be because I was genuinely struck by this music, and the CD impressed me very much. (In case you hadn't noticed)



I hear tons of different, eclectic, unusual music all the time, vintage and new, from all over the map, and I want you to know that you need to hear this album. Honest."