Colin Stetson: New History Warfare: Volume 1

For those in search of the missing link between NYC’s old downtown art ghetto and them great, old free jazz loft parties that went down a few blocks away, look no further than the solo debut from Ann Arbor, Michigan’s premier sax-for-hire Colin Stetson. Known primarily for his outstanding modal interplay on Tom Waits’s 2001 downtempo masterpiece Alice, Stetson has also appeared on albums from the likes of Arcade Fire, TV on the Radio, Antibalas, Anthony Braxton, Burning Spear, and Medeski, Martin and Wood, among others. However, on New History Warfare: Volume 1, Stetson has created a challenging, masterful set of compositions for solo saxophone that will remind one of the late, great Albert Ayler returning from the dead to pay homage to Glenn Branca in its rippling, free-flowing sheets of seamless squalls that create sounds you never in your life thought would come out of a sax. Attention John Zorn: you may have met your match this time, pal.