Jon Spencer Blues Explosion: City Tales

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JSBE Freedom Tower coverThe Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
Freedom Tower: No Wave Dance Party 2015
(Mom + Pop)
In a word: Clattering

The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion packs more damn ideas – words, careening melodies, jarring rhythms – into the shortest of spaces. Listen to a track and you’re winded… and it’s barely three minutes long.

You’ll know it’s Spencer from the start on “Funeral.” where he (as Spencer often does) shouts the band’s name. Freedom Tower is kind of the JSBX version of Lou Reed’s New York – tales and jams loosely around the city singer-guitarist Spencer, drummer Russell Simins and bassist Judah Bauer roam.

Or maybe used to roam; the sound and vision on this 13-track disc comes from a grittier time. The NYPD, sex workers and hustlers all collide in the urban jungle. Spencer speed-raps and sings as the JSBX function as a locked-in punk/funk/noise band infected by the wild, untamed spirit of blues. It’s a no wave dance party that ricochets every which way. The illusion of chaos, a primal howl driven by a big beat. “Do the Get Down” and “Betty vs. the NYPD” are standouts and I can’t help but borrow Spencer’s own description of the music: “cooked with dirt and finished in acid rain.” Carnal, celebratory, damaged. Old school and new.

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Jim Sullivan

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