“I want the sweetness and the brutality,
and I want to go to the very end
of each of those feelings…
I’ve been trying to find a way
for the terror and the beauty
to live together in one song.
I know it’s possible.”
I had this album recommended to me in the music folder on Rllmuk. I’d not heard of the guy before, and I was pretty surprised when I got my hands on it. It’s intense, devotional music – I suppose you’d call it free jazz, and it does have it’s chaotic moments, but there’s a unity and purpose to the playing which pleases me greatly.
It’s really defined by the vocals from Sonny’s wife. It’s real voice-as-instrument stuff, with no need for lyrics or other such pointless fripperies (although there is one part that sounds like she’s riffing on ‘Every Time We Say Goodbye’). Sonny gets his guitar on in earnest on ‘Blind Willy’, which is a gorgeous little folk interlude from the madness. The whole album’s not like anything i’ve heard before, but then maybe I just haven’t heard enough free jazz.
More info & tracks on his own website, and a decent bio on allmusic.com.
25 July, 2006 at 1:18 pm
> I’d not heard of the guy before…
check out Last Exit (Sonny Sharrock, Peter Brötzmann, Bill Laswell, Ronald Shannon Jackson) – freeform jazz rock noise stuff – awesome
4 August, 2006 at 8:41 pm
Sounds like I should be downloading this, thanks for the tip!
30 October, 2007 at 10:34 am
Thank you – have been trying to find “Black Woman” for so long. Thanks for posting it here!
