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Peter Br?tzmann & Paal Nilssen-Love: Chicken Shit Bingo
ByPeter Brötzmann
woodwinds1941 - 2023

Paal Nilssen-Love
drumsb.1974
Over two days the pair went into the studio, as Nilssen-Love's liners reveal, Br?tzmann with an arsenal of reed instruments, including a newly acquired contralto clarinet, the drummer with an array of so far untried Korean gongs. All receive a good airing in the eight selections of a program which presents a rather more introspective portrait of the duo than the concert setting routinely provided. Br?tzmann toys with melody throughout, often tenderly invested with emotion, sometimes doleful, although generally remaining astringently just the right side of sentimental.
His extemporizations frequently invoke the intervals and contours of the lovely tune codified as "Master Of A Small House" in the company of

Joe McPhee
woodwindsb.1939
Other flashes of the expected intensity flare up, in purest form on the pithy "Move On Over" where a drum cavalcade ushers in a squalling woodwind, probably bass clarinet, and again on "Dancing Octopus" with Br?tzmann on nerve-shredding tarogato. But even that ends up in another dimension as Nilssen-Love explores a veritable foundry of sheet metal thunder. Elsewhere they maintain a bubbling simmer, as on the opening "Butterfly Mushroom" which luxuriates in the overtones from piercing contralto clarinet and percussive strikes, or even construct a moving tone poem, as they do on the closer, "Found The Cabin But No People," its elegiac quality given poignant heft by the concluding exhalations fading to silence.
Busy schedules meant that the music never saw the light of day while Br?tzmann was alive, but its issue creates a rich and singular entry in an already mighty discography. ">
Track Listing
Butterfly Mushroom; Ant Eater Hornback Lizard; Smuddy Water; South Of No Return; Dancing Octopus; Move On Over; Five Of Them Survived The Dream; Found The Cabin But No People.
Personnel
Peter Br?tzmann
woodwindsPaal Nilssen-Love
drumsAdditional Instrumentation
Peter Br?tzmann: tarogato, Bb clarinet, contralto clarinet, bass clarinet, bass saxophone; Paal Nilssen-Love: drums, gongs, percussion.
Album information
Title: Chicken Shit Bingo | Year Released: 2024 | Record Label: Trost Records
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