Marc Ribot's Ceramic Dog
Party Intellectuals

LA RECENSIONE

“A free/punk/funk/experimental/psychedelic/post electronica collective..”

Anyone familiar with Marc Ribot's insane associations is surely aware of the high level of chameleonic guitar skills found in his diverse artistic journey: from spontaneous and significant collaborations (from the thousand-and-one Zornian follies to the guttural rants of Tom Waits, traversing through Capossela and Costello) to his own quirky projects (Cubanos Postizos), he has systematically navigated between entities and situations light-years apart.

To confirm this axiom, at the beginning of this solar year comes such a multi-angular artifact: a 'Ceramic Dog' around which Ribot, with the help of “two of the best young players on the New York/California underground improv/experimental rock scene, Shahzad Ismailly (bass) and Ches Smith (drums)” gathers, mixes, and jumbles sound materials of diverse nature that to describe as seemingly incompatible would be anything but boastful.

From the blazing opening (a caustic reinterpretation of the Doors' “Break On Through”) to the (fake) breakneck rock of the closing “Never Better,” one witnesses a multifaceted series of assorted oddities - from ultraPOP featuring improbable “la-la-la” choruses of “Todo El Mundo Es Kitsch” to the square Devo-oriented trajectories of the lengthy excursus “Digital Handshake” - in a succession of sometimes exuberant, more or less cacophonic fragments for a work that to describe, at times, as instrumentally compelling is an understatement.

Those who don't know him, well... go listen!