HÜSEYIN ERTUNC TRIO - MUSIKI (LP)

"Released in 1974 as a private press LP on Intex Records, this cosmic free jazz improvisation by this legendary trio guided by Hüseyin Ertunc - on drums - with his then-regular partners Michael Cosmic and Phil Musra - on saxophones and additional percussion - reveals the primitive and physical approach of the trio, with Ertunc's massive cymbals drumming building a carpet of trance-driving vibe where the reeds can freely dance without any structure." (label info) "A new world of improvisational freedom opened up for me when I first heard drummer Huseyin Ertunc's 1974 LP Musiki, with reedmen/multi-instrumentalists/brothers Phil Musra and Michael Cosmic. Ertunc returned to his native Turkey about twenty years ago (and performs with the Konstrukt collective), but Musra - this tune's composer - now resides in Los Angeles and is still active in music. Although I initially assumed that Musiki and Musra's companion LP The Creator Spaces were recorded at the same session, in truth Musiki was recorded months earlier. The Creator Spaces is a bit more spacious than Ertunc's date, though both are quite intense documents of self-produced and spiritually-directed improvisation. Knotty and weird, there's a folksy unhingedness that really spoke to me in a way quite different from Albert Ayler, the AACM, and other music I was spending time with when I dropped the needle on the trio's debut album. Ertunc's percussion work really shocked me and it's still absolutely fascinating, and Cosmic's organ playing behind/around Musra's tenor is just... something else." (Clifford Allen) edition of 400 copies