Allen Lowe: vocals, electric guitar, alto saxophone, synthesizer, bass, electric banjo; Randy Sandke: trumpet; Scott Robinson: contrabass clarinet; Matthew Shipp: piano; Marc Ribot: electric guitar; Rafael Keilt-Freyre: bass; Jim Leyden: bass; Kit Demos: bass; Gary Gemitti: drums; Jeff Shaw: drums; Frank Sanfilippo: drums; Tim Harbeson: organ; Lewis Porter: synthesizer; Erin McKeown: vocal
It seem like Lowe's Jews In Hell: Radical Jewish Acculturation is a concept record meant more to be thought about than listened to. Rather, this record, Lowe's first since 1994's Woyzeck's Death, might better be thought of as his own self-criticism and summation of experiences thus far, told through the lenses of free jazz, bluesy skronk, and punk abandon.
Lowe's guitar style is itself extraordinarily fragmentary, a disjointed and dissonant, non-linear approach that seems to creep out of nowhere on the solos of Lonesome And Dead and imbues the bent notes and wide intervallic relationships of Tsuris In Mind. It's not the square-wheel rhythms of Robert Pete Williams or the perverse Company-weaned antics of Eugene Chadbourne, though Lowe's musical landscape surely includes such precedents. His solo on the (sub-) title track may display a bit more logic, building from loose, raunchy blues to detuned Arto Lindsay-esque DNA madness, though the tension of escaping bar lines and rhythmic constraint is present from the beginning.
In a more jazz-based setting, there's an entirely different side of Lowe's music visible than punk-folk-blues would belie. The loose rhythms and broadly shifting cadences of his alto suggest an Eric Dolphy/Anthony Braxton approach, though his tone approximates earlier Charlie Parker disciples. In trio with Randy Sandke's trumpet and Scott Robinson's contrabass clarinet, there is a kinship with the AACM's drummer-less swing and bright, swaggering melodies.
There is a quiet honesty on the delicate 'film version' of the title track (Soundtrack Theme From The Film Jews In Hell) and I Come From Nowhere that makes me look forward to hearing Lowe in a purely improvisational context. Though Jews In Hell offers settings for improvisers like pianist Matthew Shipp (including a piano-guitar duo with Lowe on Shiva I) and guitarist Marc Ribot, it would've been interesting, for example, to hear Lowe's own take on multi-instrumentalist Jaki Byard's post-modernism, despite the excellence with which Shipp approaches such work.
As the song titles suggest, and because there are experiential as well as philosophical underpinnings to the music, Lowe's lyrics are of major importance. However, the vocals are frequently off-mike and in some cases are hard to decipher (Suburban Jews, an important track, is a perfect example). Sometimes, as on Oi Death, muffled and primal atmospherics make the point clearly, but at other times one wishes for a bit more vocal clarity. Then again, Charley Patton isn't all that easy to decipher, either, though you get the feel of it.
Coupled with the broken rhythms, isolated phrasing and distant-thunder twang of Lowe's guitar (Other Bodies Other Souls), a clear psychological picture of alienation emerges - but it isn't without the affirmation of humor and wry, life-giving musicianship. Allen Lowe has, with Jews In Hell: Radical Jewish Acculturation, created a complex musical landscape through a summation of experiences and meditation on their integration. It's self-criticism amid satire, applied both to the musician and the craft of music making, and a vision well worth sharing in. - Clifford Allen
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Allen Lowe "Jews In Hell/Radical Jewish Acculturation"
