What happens when you mix Metallica with Ornette Coleman? Well, these two albums from Rare Noise Records offer a couple of possibilities…
Reflections in Cosmo consists of saxist Kjeti Moster, guitarist Hans Magnus Ryan, keyboard player Stale Storiokken and drummer Thomas Stronen. There is a surfeit of hard hitting originals, with Moster blasting through the bari with searing electric guitar and thunderous rhythms on “Cosmosis” and the frenetic “Fuzztone,” while you get some sighing soprano sax and tensile guitar trillings on the rocking steady “Ironhorse.” Stronen gets hyperkinetic on “Cosmic Hymn” while laying down a mechanical beat with edgy guitar on “Perpetuuum Immobile.” Full fisted!
The band Led Bib doesn’t have any electric guitars, but Liran Donn’s fuzz toned bass more than makes up for the difference, keeping down a foundation for the twin bright alto saxes of Chris Williams & Peter Grogan and the rhythm team of TobyMcLaren/key and Mark Holub/dr. The two saxes are locked together like a 3 legged race, going back and forth with the whipsawing “Lobster Terror” or shrilling together over the thunderous chaos of “Too Many Cooks.” Donn’s groove is thick and fuzzy on the serpentine “At the Shopping Centre” and the team sounds like it took its Iron Man pills on “Skeleton Key to the City.” Thunder and lightning mix it up here.