Blue-Eyed Easter Island Babies

Jaws of the Flying Carpet

Jaws’ record here is just one more justification for a very independent music scene. This is a group I’ve never heard of, though I’ve been following free music for decades. They are part of an Ottawa improv culture and they’ve been around for 25 years! Pan-everything could describe them and they put it all into a kind of linear surrealism where you can giddily follow the development of each cut. Pretty accessible, then for this kind of music, but by no means less captivating for that. Almost every track is damned original. That’s a lot of hurdles that Jaws has jumped. They play instruments from all over the world but there’s nothing remotely Up With People here of course. There is a little, not-very-exciting jazz rock, but about four-fifths of the content succeeds admirably. It mostly hangs together and it’s more than a bit mushroomy. An album that gives New Music a swift kick in the pants, something New Music, like anything else, regularly needs.

OPI/CJI/BU3/SQ4

www.thebabyuniverse.com

Richard Grooms