Paranoise • Constant Fear

Get your combat boots out, and grab your jazz and prog encylopedias while your at it. It would not hurt to anchor the ceramics in your home before you elevate the volume to two and a half, either.
Paranoise were a New York band from the 1980s. Listening, you can hear a lot of James White--check out the sax--and those dissonent little structres you hear in DNA.
But those New York bands came out of punk- albeit the most arty end of it. James White uses avant jazz shadings, but works to maintain the flatness of 1970s do it yourselfism. DNA kept their tracks minimaliazed to leave their no wave credentials in tact.
Paranoise embraces avant-gaurd 1970s loft jazz in full force. A lot of these musicians are on this album, and this band does not try to hide a much more sophistacted pool of influcences, some of which were almost antithetical to the New York underground of the time.
There is no smallness or punk amaturism to this music. The dissonent intervals this band uses derive from free jazz and the left wing of progressive rock; Albert Ayler and Pharroh Sanders, Vander Gaff Generater and Henry Cow come to mind, in impulse if not actual sound.
The sound here is far bigger and a lot more dangerous than 1960s free jazz or 1970s progressive rock. Made in the 80s, Constant Fear uses electric drums and heavy electronicly generated basslines. The production gives the music that hugeness that early digital recording allowed so many 80s albums. If you can picture the most dissonent 70s prog pumped on 80s steriods, you get Paranoise.

Bill Your 'Free Form FM Print DJ

Amazon Review

1. Armageddon
Anthony Jackson • Contrabass Guitar
Steve Elson • Baritone Saxophone
Lenny Pickett • Tenor Saxophone

2. Suffocation
Luther Thomas • Alto Saxophone

3. The Plague
Luther Thomas • Alto Saxophone
Gary Windo • Tenor Saxophone

4. Carburetor
Luther Thomas • Alto Saxophone
Don Cherry • Trumpet
Percy Jones • Fretless Bass

5. Cut It Out
Lenny Pickett • Tenor Saxophone
Steve Elson • Baritone Saxophone

6. Roll Groover
Gary Windo • Tenor Saxophone
Anthony Jackson • Contrabass Guitar

7. Constant Fear
Gary Windo • Tenor Saxophone
Percy Jones • Fretless Bass

8. Fight The Power
Joy Askew • Backing Vocals
Nikki Gregoroff • Backing Vocals

9. Forget About The Earth / This Is Where It's At
Gary Windo • Tenor Saxophone
Don Cherry • Trumpet, Clay Whistle
Percy Jones • Fretless Bass
Spirit Ensemble • Percussion

Micky Ortiz • Lead and Backing Vocals
Jim Matus • Guitar, Backing Vocals, Keyboards, Programming, Horn Arrangements
Lloyd Fonoroff • Drum Programming, Backing Vocals

Produced by Jim Matus and Lloyd Fonoroff

Label: Antilles New Directions ‎– ANCD 8737
Format: CD, Album
Country: US
Released: 1988
Genre: Rock
Style: Rock, Jazz