It Is What It Is, by Jooklo Trio

It Is What It Is

by Jooklo Trio

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jiristepan Rajot! Pure aggression and pissed-offness oozes out of this record in all directions. When was the last time a saxophone sounded like a crustmetal solo? Absolutely sick, you have to experience this. Volume nach rechts!

bob3 The always hardcore and intense Jooklos (Virginia and David) with beautifully sludgy and distorted electric bass of Brandon Lopez. Was not sure I would like it, but glad I gave it a listen and a download! And I have to agree with Nick Metzger: EPIC

Noroît Jiminy Philip (Une vengeance) thumbnail

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The Italian Jooklo Duo – sax player (and also keyboard player) Virginia Genta and partner-drummer David Vanzan, have been busy freeing the free jazz since 2003, and as Genta describes it: “constantly working to find the highest way of expression connected to the oneness of universe”. The Jooklo Trio connects these restless improvisers with New York-based electric bass player Brandon Lopez. Their recording was captured at GSI Studios, Manhattan in August 2018, and was first released by Jooklo’s label Troglosound in a limited edition DIY album (Genta did the artwork, Vanzan the mixing and mastering) of 50 copies, available at shows only, before Relative Pitch Records did justice with this epic performance and released it anew.
I would recommend watching the Jooklo Duo – or any other incarnation of Genta and Vanza – live and close, to get the full experience, but for the unfortunate ones, «It Is What It Is» comes as close as possible. Just prepare yourself to the utmost intense, brutal, and manic sonic onslaught that a free-improv unit can offer, and then add some tons of reckless punk and death metal aggression. Genta screams and shouts on the amplified soprano and tenor saxes, injecting feedback and distortion noises in generous doses. Lopez does the same with his effects-laden electric bass and Vanzan is all over the drum set. All three musicians never stop for a second their attacks, jumping head-on from one ecstatic climax («Toxic Spit») to another cathartic one («Smile of Insanity» and «Trash Over Rice»). The Jooklo Trio sound as determined to shake the Earth inside-out until it finds its oneness connection to the universe.
34 minutes of magnificent, ecstatic music. Eyal Hareuveni ... more

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	1.	Last Parasites 06:11
	2.	Cripple Eye 03:23
	3.	Toxic Spit 08:01
	4.	Smile of Insanity 05:23
	5.	Trash Over Rice 06:37
	6.	Shitty Kid 04:20

about

This release captures what is sure to become a legendary coupling. Genta and her long-time-partner-in-crime David Vanzan plus one Brandon Lopez, all amasse under the moniker Jooklo Trio. As you can imagine the meeting plays out like a stellar collision, their sonic masses caught in an accelerating spiral and merged in a blast of power and intensity. Amplification, feedback, and distortion play a big part here, adding oxygen to the fire and making it roar with a white-hot blast furnace of free-jazz-punk energy. Lopez's sledgehammer bass playing is saturated in fuzz, and made all the more crushing by Vanzan's energetic avalanche of percussion. Genta's amplified tenor and sopranino saxophones light up their suffocating murk like rooster tails of sparks flying off the grinding wheel.... Lopez fits right in with the duo, and you can hear him and Genta throttling with the surges of percussion. "Smile of Insanity" might be the harshest piece on the album, with Genta peeling the paint off the walls in an almost unbroken narrative of respiratory aggression. On the fantastically titled "Trash Over Rice" the bass throbs within a web of death metal percussion. The din is punctuated with ecstatic banshee howling. The final track, "Shitty Kid" is manic with an incomprehensible energy given the intensity of the preceding tracks. Genta blows piercing serpentine lines in ceaseless variations, beckoning the cosmos with her purifying fire. Epic. Nick Metzger - Free Jazz Blog

credits

released October 9, 2020

Virginia Genta - Amplified tenor and sopranino saxophones
Brandon Lopez - electric bass
David Vanzan - drums, percussion

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Relative Pitch Records New York, New York

NYC-based independent record label specializing in avant-garde, free jazz, free improvisation, experimental.

instagram.com/relativepitchrecords

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