Iron Kim Style - Iron Kim Style (2010)

Iron Kim Style is an explosive Seattle-based jazz-rock improv quintet -- featuring Moraine's Dennis Rea (6-string electric guitar) and Jay Jaskot (drums), alongside Bill Jones (trumpet), Thaddaeus Brophy (12-string electric guitar), and Ryan Berg (electric bass). Drawing on influences as diverse as Olivier Messiaen, electric-period Miles Davis, Terje Rypdal, John Abercrombie, heavy rock, and North Korean martial music, Iron Kim Style conjures spontaneous sonic epics encompassing stomping grooves, to grinding noise, to passages of eerie beauty.The quintet has no purist axes to grind here but gleefully blends structure and abstraction, lyrical melodies and scalding noise, wicked funk and weightless balladry, as well as jazz phrasing and bracing experimentalism, into a rich and meaty sonic stew. The resulting music frequently sounds as if it were composed, due to the finely-tuned, sensitive listening skills of the participants (after many years of collective music-making).This titled debut CD is a totally improvised outing whose intuitive, cerebral communicatrions stand in stark contrast to most specimens of the free-improv genre. There is a great vibe to this intellectually-enticing set. Indeed, this is some seriously good music.