Ribot

Regrouping his Latin backing band Los Cubanos Postizos, Marc Ribot offers a sequel to his 1998 Arsenio Rodriguez tribute The Prosthetic Cubans in Muy Divertido! ("very entertaining"). While there are once again a few songs penned by Rodriguez, there's also a greater variety of composers represented, including three Ribot originals. Ribot's angular, visceral guitar style adds rock drive and avant-garde edge to these deep Latin grooves, and Anthony Coleman's spacy organ work adds a playfully strange texture to some tracks.

On their 5th studio album, Connection, Marc Ribot’s Ceramic Dog have pushed their long-brewing tension between traditional pop songcraft and avantgarde improvisational music to the breaking point, bridging their customary genre-agnostic approach with elements of glam boogie, minimalist disco, psychedelic boogaloo, garage-punk-against-the-machine agitprop, and so much more.

The mastery and vision of the enduring Marc Ribot shine through on this release. Although there have been many attempts to produce authentic indigenous music of various cultures, most have fallen short; this album succeeds in the wake of failure. Ribot delves deep into Cuban rhythms, and indeed the album is a tribute to the Cuban master Arsenio Rodriguez. Here Ribot finds an authentic Cuban sound employing traditional instrumentation: upright bass, wood blocks, cherke, and other percussion sounds. The performance is inspired, and the band consistently tears through Rodriguez's material, as well as some of their own. Ribot's guitar work nears perfection, and he proves himself to be the most soulful white alive. Songs like "Aqui Como Alla" and "Postizo" confirm these assertions.

“I got a right to say FUCK YOU!!!” is how the new album from veteran guitarist Marc Ribot’s trio Ceramic Dog starts off, with Ribot howling in anger at corruption, tyranny, life in general, and nothing in particular. If you’ve got a serious case of outrage fatigue, Ceramic Dog’s explosive cocktail of balls-to-the-wall abandon, chameleonic disregard for style constraints, political commentary, and absurdist humor is just the shot in the ass (or kick in the arm?) you might need. In fact, Ceramic Dog’s new album — whose title:YRU Still Here? is directed in equal parts at themselves, the commander in chief, and the listening public – arrives just in time to remind us that now is a moment when anger is not only necessary, and unavoidable, but also good for houseplants.

Marc Ribot's Ceramic Dog - YRU Still Here? (2018) {Enja-Yellowbird YEB-7784} (Complete Artwork)
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© 2018 Enja Records / Yellowbird | YEB-7784
Jazz / Rock / Avant-Garde / Jazz Rock / Art Rock / Psychedelic / Guitar

From the start of YRU Still Here?, Marc Ribot proclaims his intent, sneering "I got a right to be unhappy/I got a right to say 'Fuck You!'/I got a right to ignore everything you say, my feelings are political." Titled "Personal Nancy," as in Nancy Spungen, the doomed paramore of Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious, the song plays as an anthem for the fractured psyche of America in the Trump age. Which is exactly the point of YRU Still Here?, the pugilistic, stylistically expansive third album from Ceramic Dog, guitarist/singer Ribot's punk-infused trio with bassist/singer Shahzad Ismaily and drummer/singer Ches Smith.

Marc Ribot - Spiritual Unity (2005) {Pi Recordings PI15}
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© 2005 Pi Recordings | PI15
Jazz / Avant-Garde Jazz / Structured Improvisation / Guitar

Guitarist Marc Ribot, formerly of the Lounge Lizards and sometime partner of Marianne Faithfull, Tom Waits and John Zorn, has been involved in his share of unusual projects, but this one might be the most unexpected: a tribute to the late saxophonist Albert Ayler's music of the 1960s. The band catches the group's rough-hewn, trancelike sound with uncanny accuracy, with Ayler's bassist, Henry Grimes, back in action for the project at age 70. But this is no sentimental tourist trip: it's an attempt to reignite the transported atmosphere that the old band discovered through a mix of simple materials, church- and street-music, blues and selfless free-fall interplay.