Back to our usual programme, here’s a review I promised you before our holiday break, the new effort by Marc Ribot’s power trio Ceramic Dog, “Party Intellectuals” out on Pi Recordings. The left handed avant/jazz/punk/rock guitar mammoth Marc Ribot teams up with Shahzad Ismaily and Ches Smith from Secret Chiefs 3, to give another taste of his idiosyncratic fusion of diverse elements ranging from noise rock to disco. He’s definitely a master tastemaker, never disregarding different genres and methods and never conforming to what you expect. I’m sure his partners from the kings of eclecticism Secret Chiefs 3 add up to this soup, as Ceramic Dog is the epitome of kitsch objects and the band is not afraid of experimenting with it. Yet on some songs, as with the Secret Chiefs albums, the eclecticism doesn’t add up to something coherent and there’s a jumbled mess, e.g the beginning of Midost, which was already on the previous album with a better sound.

The remake of “Fuego”, Pinch is a different beast, although I prefer the one on the debut, this electronic disco version has the potential of an anthem, an intellectual party anthem, that is!.

Overall, it’s a solid album, with a few lower points like the cover of “Break on Through“, which sounds a bit forced although it’s not necessarily bad, but Ribot and his co. has once again showed us that they write interesting, intellectual music and are not afraid of experimentation even if it falls short sometimes.

Marc Ribot’s Ceramic Dog – Pinch
Marc Ribot’s Ceramic Dog – For Malena