Van Huffel, Peter / Callisto - Meandering Demons CD
SKU
CF 667
Peter Van Huffel baritone saxophone, electronics
Lina Allemano trumpet
Antonis Anissegos piano, electronics
Joe Hertenstein drums
"Borne of jazz tradition, yet audaciously and extravagantly dismissive of its more fatigued conventions, comes the devilish Meandering Demons, the fantastic debut full-length from Peter Van Huffel’s CALLISTO.
Largely eschewing the full-throttle punch and pile-driving groove of his longstanding Gorilla Mask unit, this new bass-less quartet finds Canadian firebrand Van Huffel resolutely exploring the frazzled frontiers between composition and free-form improv, making like Dune Guild Navigators, juggling space and time.
Finding maximal headroom in the formation’s low-end vacuum, Meandering Demons captures CALLISTO as they double down on their built-in propensity for chicanery, spontaneity and surprise, operating with bracing tonal candour.
Van Huffel throws down snaky and snarky from his baritone sax, locked in a series of combustible, register-exchanging salvos with Lina Allemano’s bustling trumpet hustle. Joe Herstenstein’s percussion ferments arcane textural fission and rumbling tub-thumping polyrhythms, underpinning the phantasmal phrasing of pianist Antonis Anissegos, while subtle electronic embellishments enrich the acoustic interplay.
Established protocols are buried beneath a cloud of sulphurous Mephistophelean reek, an otherworldly by-product of this band’s wicked alchemical experiments.
Across Meandering Demons’ seven intoxicating hybrids, Van Huffel’s intricately-detailed structures – some expansive and suite-like, bursting with architectural ingenuity, others aching like a slow-burn, fraught, subtle harmonic twists and suggestive layering – segue into wildly writhing, occasionally impish, extemporisation.
Bizarre instrumental spectres hone in and out of view, like Lovecraftian entities lurking amid the chattering chaos of CALLISTO’s collective tongue; an absorbingly mysterious vernacular, honed to dramatic vibrancy via the mastering chops of audio wizard, James Plotkin."
- LabelClean Feed
- UPC5609063006674