CASSETTE REVIEW: Roadside Picnic meets Dominique Ciancio “Sword Fighting Jazz” (Cruel Nature Recordings)

http://cruelnaturerecordings.bandcamp.com/album/sword-fighting-jazz
http://cruelnaturerecordings.bandcamp.com  
http://www.facebook.com/cruelnaturerecords  

                When I first heard Roadside Picnic as part of a cassette from Carbon Records, I made it my mission to seek out every other cassette I could find with the name Roadside Picnic on it.  (Downloads are acceptable substitutions for when cassettes are sold out or just not available for other reasons)

                In no way does this cassette let me down, as Roadside Picnic is one of my current favorite musicians, and when you have a title such as “Sword Fighting Jazz” to live up to, you better make sure that your tape truly is most excellent.

                These crazy improve-sounding songs bring out a lot of the experimental side of things mixed with the rattles and clunks of a tornado blowing through a large kitchen.   They are sporadic and eradic, filled with melody, rhythm and funk. 

                What I had to wonder though was whether or not these songs actually do bring to mind the idea of swords fighting with jazz somehow.  If you can imagine a sword being alive, perhaps with a face, but otherwise retaining the same characteristics it already had (the weight, the sharpness) and if you can then picture that sword trying to play a saxophone in a contest against another similar sword with a saxophone, then yeah, that could be kind of what this sounds like.   I just really enjoy it a lot, regardless of how it is pegged.