Tin Men and the Telephone: World Domination Vol 1: Furie

Seriously, if this is what world domination sounds like, sign me up for a lifetime subscription!

Sure you can control this trio with a smartphone through the Tinmendo app, but can you really? These guys are so gloriously off the rails, so wondrously their own entity that, yeah, go find your hot spot and hope for reception, but you ain't in control. None of us are (at the moment). But when this Amsterdam-based cauldron of invention and genre-mashing trio—pianist/electronist Tony Roe, bassist Pat Cleaver, and drummer Bobby Petrov—turn on the news and hear the insanity taking the place of sanity, well, good frikkin' luck. They're going to, like any artist past and present fighting dutifully against the tightening dark light, lash out like hell. And good for them. And us.

Furie, short for Federal Union for Restoring Intergalactic Equilibrium, explodes out with the title track and features a madman's grab bag of break beats, disjointed melodies, deep dubs and, oh yeah, the beauty that is free-form jazz. Tin Men and the Telephone go harp-like, rap-like and whatever else captures their ADHD, making a music that, if it doesn't survive the apocalypse, at least keeps you company until then in this madhouse swirl we define as today, looping sound bytes of less-than-respected, more-than-hated politicians. Trump, the idiot king on "The Wall," "Kim Jong-un" and a wiltingly humorous "Elmo Erdogan" serve as jump-off points for radical improv, inventive melodic invective and rhythmic consequence. Tunes bubble and burst, boggle and beat. They shimmy, willy nilly. They go AI binary ("Autonomous Weapons") and, because they are decisively skilled musicians both unafraid and unbounded by style and definition, veering from bop to pure riff, the technology never overwhelms but serves the greater communicative whole.

And their website is a blast to visit!

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