The Squid's Ear Magazine


Jooklo Trio (Genta / Vanzan / Lopez): It Is What It Is (Relative Pitch)

A raucous blast of free jazz, electrifyingly extending the Italian improv unit Jooklo Duo of drummer/percussionist David Vanzan and saxophonist Virginia Genta, here on amplified tenor & sopranino saxophones, with New York improviser Brandon Lopez on electric bass, burning six hair-raising pieces of aggressive free improv of exemplary relentlessness.
 

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product information:

Personnel:



Virginia Genta-amplified tenor saxophone, sopranino saxophone

Brandon Lopez-electric bass

David Vanzan-drums, percussion


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UPC: 6902249002744

Label: Relative Pitch
Catalog ID: RPR1119
Squidco Product Code: 29670

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2020
Country: USA
Packaging: Digipack
Recorded at GSI Studios, in New York, by Jason Rostkowski.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"It's pretty undisputed at this point that the Jooklos (Virginia Genta and David Vanzan) bare the torch for unabashed third eye opening, cosmic energy sourced, 21st century fire music. Their various incarnations and groupings explore free jazz, psychedelia, and punk with such ferocity, passion, and power that listening to the music can border on transcendence. The music is exciting and unpredictable and I've yet to hear anything they've been involved in that I didn't fall head-over-heels for. [...]

[...]

Recorded at GSI Studios in Manhattan at the end of August, 2018, this limited edition [CD] 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.

"Last Parasites" builds a foundation of snarling bass and hyperactive drums that Genta laces with shrieking feedback and reedy guitar-esque runs. On "Cripple Eye" Genta switches to tenor, squealing and barking amid Vanzan's explosive percussion and Lopez's slinky bass crunch. "Toxic Spit" continues the onslaught, with the trio sounding like Full Blast on steroids. Vanzan is such an under-rated drummer, and here he pushes the other players into the red with his raw energy. 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, The Free Jazz Collective


Get additional information at The Free Jazz Collective

Artist Biographies

"Born 1984 in Italy, Virginia Genta is self-taught and plays all saxophones (tenor, soprano, baritone, alto), flutes, clarinet, plus some percussion and keyboards. Since 2003 she's been working with drummer and percussionist David Vanzan in several projects such as Jooklo Duo, Neokarma Jooklo Trio (or Sextet, Octet, Experience), Golden Jooklo Age, and the Jooklo Finnish Quartet. She started playing music from improvisation while quite young, and has always been moving in the music cosmos with a deep, natural and spontaneous approach to creation, constantly working to find the highest way of expression connected to the oneness of universe. Besides this, the devotion of Virginia finds freedom also through drawings and illustrations. A restless activity during the past few years (about 400 concerts and a countless amount of recording sessions, some of those released on labels like Qbico, Conspiracy, and her own Troglosound), brought her to collaborations with musicians like Chris Corsano, Paul Flaherty, Bill Nace, Sonny Simmons, Daniel Carter, Sabir Mateen, John Blum, John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin), Takehisa Kosugi (Taj Mahal Travellers), Sonic Youth, Hartmut Geerken, Famodou Don Moye, Makoto Kawabata, Andrew Barker, Muruga Booker, Raymond Strid, among others. She's also a music collaborator of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company."

-Virginia Genta Website (http://virginiagenta.altervista.org/bio.htm)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"[..] Composer/bassist, Brandon A. Lopez, deemed "The Ubiquitous Free Improv Bass Ace" by the Village Voice and said to play with a "Bruising Physicality" by the Chicago reader.

He was born and raised in the splendors of Northwestern New Jersey, in the shadow of the (New York) city. It was there that he cultivated a taste for the left of center musics and subsequently, dug graves.

He's had the pleasures of working with many of the world's luminary weirdos. Here's a list: Nate Wooley, William Parker, Chris Corsano, Justice Yeldham, Weasel Walter, Peter Evans, Tyshawn Sorey, Gerald Cleaver, Ingrid Laubrock, Tom Rainey, Tony Malaby, Paul Lytton, Mette Rasmussen, Jooklo Duo, Michael Foster, Leila Bordreuil, Jaimie Branch, Joe Morris, Brandon Seabrook, Cactus Truck, John Dykeman, Daniel Carter, and many others.

He's currently leads a trio dubbed "The Mess", another one called the Brandon Lopez Trio, works as a soloist and is formerly/currently/latterly writing more and more music. He may play some it sometime soon (see "gigs").

He attended New England Conservatory."

-Brandon Lopez Website (http://www.brandonlopez.nyc/)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Born in Italy on 1984, multi-instumentalist and mainly percussionist and drummer of the new avant-garde generation, self-thaught, active since 2003 with saxophonist Virginia Genta on several experimental music projects such as Jooklo Duo, Neokarma Jooklo Experience, trio, Golden Jooklo Age and the Jooklo Finnish Quartet. Pretty much involved in mixing up jazz with free music, and picking up knowledge in sound from ethnic cultures all over the world, he explores multi-rythms and sheets of sound, with a high attention given to natural and electronic sounds, including hand-percussions, gongs, cymbals, bells... A work mostly oriented on sound research and exploration, which is eventually leading him to the preparation of a new solo project for 2010, based on drums.

A restless activity (about 400 concerts) during these last six years, brought him to collaborations with people like John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin), Takehisa Kosugi (Taj Mahal Travellers), Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Hartmut Geerken, Makoto Kawabata (Acid Mothers Temple), Andrew Barker, Muruga Booker, among others.

In the past 3 years, Vanzan has also recorded a countless amount of sessions which has been released on vinyls, cds, and tapes as gorgeous, rare, limited edition, already become collectors' stuff after only two years distance from their issue for record labels such as Qbico, Conspiracy, Troglosound.

Massively toured Europe, United Kingdom and U.S.A, plus opened concerts for bands like Sonic Youth, Borbetomagus, saxophonist Sonny Simmons and many others."

-Discogs (https://www.discogs.com/artist/832536-David-Vanzan)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:



1. Last Parasites 6:11

2. Cripple Eye 3:23

3. Toxic Spit 8:02

4. Smile Of Insanity 5:24

5. Trash Over Rice 6:37

6. Shitty Kid 4:22

Related Categories of Interest:


Improvised Music
Jazz
Free Improvisation
European Improvisation, Composition and Experimental Forms
NY Downtown & Metropolitan Jazz/Improv
Trio Recordings

Search for other titles on the label:
Relative Pitch.


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