"The first document of the intense one-on-one music created by Chicago percussionist Hamid Drake and German multiple reedman Peter Brotzmann ...and a revelation it is! The Dried Rat-Dog contains some of Brotzmann's most forceful, powerful playing, as well as his most lyrical and intimate. With Drake featured on hand drums, North Indian tabla, and frame drum, as well as trap kit, the polyrhythms and percussive ideas flow freely, and Brotzmann responds with earth-moving alto and tenor sax, tarogato, and clarinet."
"Brotzmann plays a host of reed instruments – including tarogato, e-flat clarinet, alto, and tenor – and Drake plays his trademark frame drum, plus tablas and a regular drum kit. 6 tracks of varying length, including "It's An Angel On The Door".
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Peter Brötzmann / saxophone
Hamid Drake / percussion
Available as 320kbp MP3 or 16bit FLAC
Tracklisting:
1. The Dried Rat-Dog - 13:50
2. It's An Angel On The Door - 6:51
3. Open Into The Unkown - 5:17
4. Trees Have Roots In The Earth - 10:57
5. Uninvited Entertainer - 16:09
6. Dark Wings Carry Off The Sky - 7:21
Peter Brötzmann is one of the most important and uncompromising figures in free jazz and has been at the forefront of developing a unique, European take on free improvisation since the 1960s.
Brötzmann first trained as a painter and was associated with Fluxus (Participating in various events and working as an assistant to Nam Jun Paik) before dissatisfaction with the art world moved his focus towards music. However he continued to paint and his instantly recognisable visual sensibility has produced some of our favourite LP sleeves as well as a number of gallery shows in recent years.
Self-taught on Clarinet and Saxophone, Brötzmann established himself as one of the most powerful and original players around, releasing a number of now highly sought after sides of musical invention including the epochal 'Machine Gun' session in 1968 - originally released on his own Brö private press and later recordings for FMP (Free Music Production) the label he started with Jost Gebers. Brötzmann's sound is "one of the most distinctive, life-affirming and joyous in all music" and he has performed with almost all of the major players of free music from early associations with Don Cherry and Steve Lacy to regular groupings with Peter Kowald, Alex Von Slippenbach, Han Bennink and Fred Van Hove, the Chicago Tentet (Mats Gustafsson/Joe McPhee/Ken Vandermark and more) and various one-off and ad hoc associations with many others including Keiji Haino, Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, Anthony Braxton and Rashied Ali.
Hamid Drake is an American jazz drummer and percussionist. He lives in Chicago, IL but spends a great deal of time touring worldwide. By the close of the 1990s, Hamid Drake was widely regarded as one of the best percussionists in jazz and avant improvised music. Incorporating Afro-Cuban, Indian, and African percussion instruments and influence, in addition to using the standard trap set, Drake has collaborated extensively with top free-jazz improvisers. Drake also has performed world music; by the late 70s, he was a member of Foday Musa Suso’s Mandingo Griot Society and has played reggae throughout his career.
Drake has worked with trumpeter Don Cherry, pianist Herbie Hancock, saxophonists Pharoah Sanders, Fred Anderson, Archie Shepp and David Murray and bassists Reggie Workman and William Parker (in a large number of lineups).
"[Drake's] mastery of pulse drumming, textural sculpting, hand drum techniques, reggae, funk and garage punk makes him one of the most articulate and linguistically advanced musicians on the circuit… Cecil Taylor once claimed that each man is his own academy. If that's the case, Drake is surely one of the mystery schools." - David Keenan, The WIRE
