An Avant-jazz project in the vein of (very) early Sonic Youth with elements of prog shot though the cacophony that engenders, I/O features five insane tracks that sound like Fantomas going head to head with mid-period Miles Davis. A trio comprising Sax player Fausto Sierakowski (Italy), drummer Jakub Tengler (Czech Republic) and guitarist Javier Areal Velez (Argentina), I/O met at the Art Omi residency in New York two years ago and the album was composed and recorded in a couple of weeks.
Opening track, black holes ain’t so black, is a dizzying 17 seconds of noise, flung at the listener with scant regard for nuance or convention. It gives way to the wailing sax horror of how to eat radishes at their peak, Fausto assaulting his sax and pushing it way beyond its natural range as Javier explores the strings at the nut of his guitar to create dissonant noise. It would be chaos if it weren’t for the deft anchor that Jakub provides, his rolling percussion tethering the track to some semblance of sanity even as the others threaten to fly off the page entirely. With the music flashing by, we arrive at the sultry this flaw about the bubbles, the sax drifting hazily over Javier’s off-kilter chords. Everything sounds wrong, as if it’s lost under an explosion of soap and water, only for the band to suddenly erupt into a ferocious burst of disjointed noise, like a condensed carnival marching through the bathroom on their way to the fair. Closer, musically, to straight forward jazz, the New Orleans groove of much more contact with my audience seems to catch the band in a more forgiving mood, only for Patton-esque vocals and squeals of tortured sax to tear the vibe to pieces in a stunningly visceral display. It leaves only the churning noise of no charge to bring this necessarily short and vivacious record to a bristling close.
Describing I/O’s record is rather like trying to catch a fish under water with your bare hands – you can grab it from time to time, but try to hold on and it slithers from your grasp, darting to another place entirely. Clearly this is not music for the masses – the pulsing avant-noise is extremely left-field and is best recommended to those who have explored the likes of Branca, Suicide and Swans and who admire a purity of vision untainted by tawdry aspects of commerce. Bold, beautiful and brutal, I/O conjure up a compelling storm – just don’t expect an easy ride. 8
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