BRAIN DRAIN by Gorilla Mask

2019 Clean Feed Records (180-gram Gatefold LP / CD / Digital)

Peter Van Huffel’s journey through the combination of jazz and rock, alien to the fusion tradition of the seventies and the collage of the nineties, proceeds with yet another opus from the Gorilla Mask gang, as always inclusive of the mindblowing rhythm section of Roland Fidezius and Rudi Fischerlehner. “Brain Drain” is a mishmash of punk, metal, jazz, free improvisation and written avant-garde music, always in the process of construction and deconstruction, going from persistent, headbanging riffs and grooves to abstract and puzzling situations or vice-versa, without excuses nor preconceptions. Black Sabbath is in the house, as are John Coltrane and Albert Ayler, two primary influences of the Berlin-based canadian saxophonist. The energy is overwhelming, but there are melodies on it, not only hammering rhythms or crazy textures. Highly emotional, but also structurally complex with fractured rhythms and bended tempos, this is the music of our present times: full of rage but also of joy. Deep, restless, invigorating and open to any possibility, all the qualities we expect from the art of sounds.