Search - David Torn, Mick Karn, Terry Bozzio :: Polytown

Beyond description.

Michael Stack | North Chelmsford, MA USA | 04/12/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

""Polytown" is one of those projects that you sort of hope would evolve into something more-- this trio, guitarist David Torn, bassist Mick Karn, and drummer Terry Bozzio, produced such a superb record of instrumental music that you couldn't help but wish there was a followup, but this is all we got.



And its quite a statement-- the three of them play together fantastically-- not a surprise given they'd worked together extensively-- the music has an improvised feel to it, even in obviously composed passages, the music has a nice looseness and spaciousness to it-- Bozzio in particular seem really open with his playing-- whereas most "rock" drummers (although calling this music that) tend to play themselves into a wall, space is critical on this record-- check out the brilliant "Snail Hair Dune" for a good example of this-- Torn and Karn largely play single note lines while Bozzio implies as well as states.



With this looseness, the album covers a number of sounds and feels-- the playing is superb, and there's really not a bad track on here, but some stand out-- the great "Honey Sweating", with Torn's guitar blasts, the slow, funky "Bandaged by Dreams" (with one of my favorite Karn basslines), percussion driven "Warrior Horsemen of the Spirit Thundering Over Hills of Doubt to a Place of Hope" and the simply brilliant "Red Sleep" all come to mind.



Any fan of either of these three gentlemen will love this album-- its certainly amongst the best work by each of them, but I'd recommend this to anyone who enjoys improvised music and great musicianship."