The Peace Between Our Companies

SSC3026 2005-02-01

Track List

Starchild Cranium - 4:46
Freelance Robotics - 8:49
Paulie\'s Quick Temper Has Gotten Him Into A Few Jams - 2:22
Let\'s Not Reflect - 6:16
Dojo Fantastique - 9:22
See Sun Spot Run - 12:31
Ella By Nightlight - 4:46
Go (base 13) - 2:33

Musicians

Erik Fratzke - fender bass
David King - drums
Michael Lewis - soprano alto and tenor saxophones, keyboard

recorded and mixed at the terrarium in Minneapolis.
except track 7 recorded in Paris at studios de la seine.
Happy Apple, a Minneapolis jazz group, dips into funk, too, but in a much harsher, more brutal way. The group has only three players but it's a steamroller, something like a cross between Ornette Coleman's mid-60's group and the Minutemen.
Mr. King pounds like the best rock drummers, sometimes accentuated by studio reverb. But he extends and splinters his groove as well, and sometimes just rustles in continuous improvisational streams; his playing on "Freelance Robotics" (all the titles are kind of like that) is all textural, and quite beautiful.
There's a small subgenre of bands right not that are making a tricky but inevitable connection: the combustible energy, sardonic attitudes and harsh, crackling timbres of indie rock and the musicianship, improvisational logic and humanism of jazz. This is Happy Apple's sixth album, and the group has figured out how to shape an hour of music that's surprising enough, track by track, not to wear you down. It's nice to hear a band with such radically different dispositions.
THE NEW YORK TIMES

Listening to The Peace Between Our Companies, one is struck imme¬diately by its energetic onslaught. This remarkable opener to a remarkable record is the product of ten years of collaboration.... The whole "In vs. Out" or "Trad vs. Avant" duality, so prevalent in jazz criticism, is confounded by Happy Apple's music. It relates to the jazz tradi¬tion, incorporates elements of the avant-garde, and references many styles beyond what most of us consider as being jazz: funk, rock 'n roll, and even punk- Pieces like the aforementioned "Starchild Cranium," "Psulie's Quick Temper has Gotten Him into a Few Jams," and "Go (Base 13)" are filled with a pugnacious rock sensibility, lead¬ing some critics to characterizing the band as "punk jazz."
Christian Carey, Signal to Noise