Clangs

Description

Edition of 250 copies, remastered from the original master tapes.

Out of print and hotly pursued on the secondary market, we’re thrilled to announce a much needed reissue initiative, dedicated to Ictus’ back catalog, beginning with four LPs, Steve Lacy and Andrea Centazzo’s Clangs, originally issued in 1976, Derek Bailey and Andrea Centazzo’s Drops, originally issued in 1977, Steve Lacy, Andrea Centazzo, and Kent Carter’s Trio Live, also from 1977, and John Zorn, Andrea Centazzo, Eugene Chadbourne, Tom Cora, Toshinori Kondo, and Polly Bradfield’s Environment for Sextet, originally issued in 1979. Issued in limited editions of 250 copies, they stand among the most important and sinfully overlooked documents of the movement of global improvisation that unfurled during the 1970s, and can’t be missed.

Ictus Records’ reissue initiative fittingly begins with Clangs, the first LP issued by the label in 1976. Recorded by Steve Lacy on soprano saxophone, bird calls, and pocket synthesizer (“Crack Box”), with Andrea Centazzo on Drums, various forms of percussion, whistle, and vocals, the album is the culmination of a couple of weeks that the two artists spent together while Lacy was touring Italy during that year.

Clangs encounters Lacy – one of the giants of American free jazz – already two decades into a career defined by brilliant collaborations with Cecil Taylor, Don Cherry, and Thelonious Monk, among others, as well as a sprawling body of visionary work as a leader. Like so much of his work leading into this period, it draws upon the saxophonist’s belief that an artist should ‘play what you feel’, a position that Centazzo – roughly 15 years Lacy’s junior – recalls as having torn down the curtain that separated his technique from his creativity.

Comprising a series of duets that investigate timbral relationships, the fragmentation of melody, and abrasive, provocative noise – shifting from the sparse, airy, and restrained, to dance clusters of interplay and back again – Clangs, for all its radicalism and forward-thinking gestures, rests firmly within the historic structures of jazz, deploying the idiom of theme / solo / theme. Lacy’s playing is at the top of his form – fluttering and dancing with a primal touch – met by Centazzo’s rattle and patter of percussive interventions, the notes and polyrhythms of each respective player being the product of carful listening, response, and raising the bar.

’70s free jazz at its best – sophisticated, refined, and charged with a latent social and political power – more than four decades after it first appeared Clangs is long overdue for a return to the world, retaining every bit of potency and power as the day it was laid to tape. Available in a very limited vinyl edition – its first reissue on its original format since its initial release – of 250 copies, it’s an absolute must for any fan of improvised music and isn’t going to sit around for long.