Borne of jazz tradition, yet audaciously and extravagantly dismissive of its more fatigued conventions, comes the devilish Meandering Demons, the fantastic debut full-length from Peter Van Huffel’s CALLISTO.
Largely eschewing the full-throttle punch and pile-driving groove of his longstanding Gorilla Mask unit, this new bass-less quartet finds Canadian firebrand Van Huffel resolutely exploring the frazzled frontiers between composition and free-form improv, making like Dune Guild Navigators, juggling space and time.
Finding maximal headroom in the formation’s low-end vacuum, Meandering Demons captures CALLISTO as they double down on their built-in propensity for chicanery, spontaneity and surprise, operating with bracing tonal candour. Van Huffel throws down snaky and snarky from his baritone sax, locked in a series of combustible, register-exchanging salvos with Lina Allemano’s bustling trumpet hustle. Joe Herstenstein’s percussion ferments arcane textural fission and rumbling tub-thumping polyrhythms, underpinning the phantasmal phrasing of pianist Antonis Anissegos, while subtle electronic embellishments enrich the acoustic interplay.
Established protocols are buried beneath a cloud of sulphurous Mephistophelean reek, an otherworldly by-product of this band’s wicked alchemical experiments. Across Meandering Demons’ seven intoxicating hybrids, Van Huffel’s intricately-detailed structures – some expansive and suite-like, bursting with architectural ingenuity, others aching like a slow-burn, fraught, subtle harmonic twists and suggestive layering – segue into wildly writhing, occasionally impish, extemporisation.
Bizarre instrumental spectres hone in and out of view, like Lovecraftian entities lurking amid the chattering chaos of CALLISTO’s collective tongue; an absorbingly mysterious vernacular, honed to dramatic vibrancy via the mastering chops of audio wizard, James Plotkin.
(Press Release text by Spencer Grady)
credits
released March 24, 2024
Peter Van Huffel - Baritone Saxophone, Electronics
Lina Allemano - Trumpet
Antonis Anissegos - Piano, Electronics
Joe Hertenstein - Drums
Recorded October 12th & 13th, 2022 at Hansa Studios Berlin by Martin Offik. Mixed by Martin Offik in Berlin, Germany. Mastered by James Plotkin at Plotkinworks, USA.
Produced by Peter Van Huffel.
Executive production by Pedro Costa for Trem Azul.
Design and artwork by Travassos.
Photo(s) by Manuel Miethe
Tasmanian guitarist Julius Schwing embraces the visceral sounds of finger playing, incorporating them into his experimental guitar work. Bandcamp New & Notable Mar 8, 2022
The soundtrack to the award-winning film “Freeland” functions beautifully as an album in its own right, with stark, evocative instrumentals. Bandcamp New & Notable Mar 7, 2021
Beautiful, elegantly wrought instrumentals with the grace and delicacy of slowcore mark the latest from James Schroeder. Bandcamp New & Notable Sep 28, 2020
This collaboration between guitarist Lucas Brode and drummer G. Calvin Weston is a freewheeling hybrid of experimentalism, jazz, and more. Bandcamp New & Notable Mar 28, 2023