Rejoice! We have a trilogy!
Oh wait, that's already how I started the review of the second comeback album from John Zorn, Bill Laswell and Mick Harris as PainKiller!
PAINKILLER - The Great God Pan (CD) (2025)
After two albums of moving their Grindjazz legend legacy into the realm of half-Electronic Future Jazz - "Samsara" rather straight forward, "The Equinox" more complex and refined - the trio stepped on the brake to deliver a much more textural and Ambient work with "The Great God Pan".
Laswell and Harris mostly bring flowing and droning atmosphere to the two over twenty minutes long tracks. While the Electronic artist of ex-Napalm Death drumming fame actually plays percussion again in "Ercildoune", you shouldn't expect wild blastbeat explosions. No, even when he plays some wilder stuff, it appears so subtly in the mix that you probably won't even notice it as what is it on first listening.
The base of the music stays slow and minimalist almost all the time, meandering in a mood that can sometimes be eerily beautiful, but most of the time feels hauntingly nocturnal.
Zorn is the only player who repeatedly goes for the berserk PainKiller trademark with sudden shrill saxophone crescendos. But even those are placed in a restrained effectful manner between long passages of a more calm, soulful and spiritual performance.
"Secret Sins" is the wilder piece of the two, with more dirty noises and a more adventurous yet also denser mood. And it starts with thirty seconds of actual old-school "Guts Of A Virgin" grindfuckery!
All in all "The Great God Pan" remains a very different beast than the other two CDs - and that's brilliant, because it completes the wide picture of what PainKiller stands for over three decades after the group's inception.
Alongside Zorn's sister group Naked City, which started with the idea of Jazz musicians playing Grindcore, the pivotal role of PainKiller in connecting the extreme and Avant-Garde edges of Jazz and Rock music cannot be overstated. One could have easily let the name rest comfortably on its luxurous couch in music history, but I applaud the group to not only reactivating but also redefining it with this strong trilogy!
Laswell and Harris mostly bring flowing and droning atmosphere to the two over twenty minutes long tracks. While the Electronic artist of ex-Napalm Death drumming fame actually plays percussion again in "Ercildoune", you shouldn't expect wild blastbeat explosions. No, even when he plays some wilder stuff, it appears so subtly in the mix that you probably won't even notice it as what is it on first listening.
The base of the music stays slow and minimalist almost all the time, meandering in a mood that can sometimes be eerily beautiful, but most of the time feels hauntingly nocturnal.
Zorn is the only player who repeatedly goes for the berserk PainKiller trademark with sudden shrill saxophone crescendos. But even those are placed in a restrained effectful manner between long passages of a more calm, soulful and spiritual performance.
"Secret Sins" is the wilder piece of the two, with more dirty noises and a more adventurous yet also denser mood. And it starts with thirty seconds of actual old-school "Guts Of A Virgin" grindfuckery!
All in all "The Great God Pan" remains a very different beast than the other two CDs - and that's brilliant, because it completes the wide picture of what PainKiller stands for over three decades after the group's inception.
Alongside Zorn's sister group Naked City, which started with the idea of Jazz musicians playing Grindcore, the pivotal role of PainKiller in connecting the extreme and Avant-Garde edges of Jazz and Rock music cannot be overstated. One could have easily let the name rest comfortably on its luxurous couch in music history, but I applaud the group to not only reactivating but also redefining it with this strong trilogy!
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