Throat

Personnel: Andrew Smiley (guitar); Darius Jones (alto saxophone); Travis Laplante (tenor saxophone); Jason Nazary (drums).
Audio Mixer: Andy Taub.
Recording information: Brooklyn Recording (12/11/2009).
The all-male quartet named Little Women has very little to do with the image their moniker might imply. For their second album, the Brooklyn-based ensemble furthers their explorations of sound into free improvisation based on a noise-driven palette that, in essence, goes beyond the post-Albert Ayler or Peter Brötzmann sounds you would naturally expect. Saxophonists Darius Jones (alto) and Travis LaPlante (tenor) rip, snort, and rant on these seven tracks that are set up as a suite and have few connective tissues, except that of raw power. Electric guitarist Andrew Smiley is also skronking along, while drummer Jason Nazary tends to purposefully hit and miss with reckless abandon in the rhythmic department. Though there are less frenzied and chaotic passages that come across as more macabre or painstakingly derived, the group is on a mass attack of sensory overload for the most part -- going for the throat, as it were -- with unabashed and fearless blasts of shouted angst and screamo-type jazz. It's really as simple as that, yet more complicated emotionally when you listen to this music under the surface. Appealing to very specific tastes and not for even garden-variety creative music listeners, Little Women offers something unique, if not disturbing, definitely new, and runs parallel to similar groups like the Empty Cage Quartet or Polwechsel. ~ Michael G. Nastos