Riot Material

Art. Word. Thought.

Expansive New Work From The Necks: Body

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on Northern Spy Records
Reviewed by John Payne

The Necks: Body (reviewed at Riot Material magazine)How to better classify an improvisational unit such as the Necks? Since the Australian trio perform their music on instruments associated with jazz — acoustic piano, double bass and drums — they tease us with whether or not they ought to be aligned with the severely rule-bound world of jazz at all. Whatever the case, it is hugely satisfying to hear the group’s lack of reverence for the form’s many hallowed conventions. With a healthy, punky boredom about all that, the Necks poke all ye olde shopworn swinging jazz a certifiably new bumhole. [Read more…]

Yoko Ono’s Incomparable Warzone

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Reviewed by John Payne

A sort of a disclaimer here: I’ve known Yoko Ono for many years, or at least had the pleasure of interviewing her several times, as I have her son Sean. I like both of them very much. I’ve checked them out on different levels, tried to cut through any of the potential typical self-self-self-hyping showbiz bullshit or what have you, and they passed the tests with flying colors. They are real people, with good hearts and minds. (You’ll just have to trust me on that.) Thus my understanding of and sympathy for Yoko Ono colors my critical soul a little bit, I don’t mind saying it. I want to approve and feel enthusiasm about her music; this means I’m open to it. And I do feel that Ono’s latest and, one hopes, not final record,Warzone — a collection of 13 songs from her past work, spanning 1970-2009 — is the best album of her career. It is deep, and moving, unlike anything I’ve heard in a long time, and perhaps never have heard before. [Read more…]

Jon Hassell’s Listening to Pictures (Pentimento Volume 1)

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Reviewed by John Payne

One perhaps unusual compliment we ought to pay to Jon Hassell’s new Listening to Pictures (Pentimento Volume 1) is that, like all of his music, one grows impatient having to write about it while listening to it. This music — which I want to never end when I put it on — is too seductive to be looking at a computer screen while trying to come to terms with its intriguing charms. [Read more…]

Wajatta’s Wickedly Funky (And Fun!) Casual High Technology

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on Comedy Dynamics
Reviewed by John Payne

As a way of potentially creating something genuinely new, or at least surprising, the time-honored but perhaps neglected artistic scheme of melding or juxtaposing multiple dissimilar aesthetic beliefs or conceptual visions in order to birth a third entity, independent of its parents’ genetics, might be the best way to describe the resonant thrills encoded within the grooves of Wajatta’s debut album. [Read more…]