DE-ICER Pinski Zoo SLAMCD 206
TRACKS
1 Bubble fun 6m 08s
2 Dust bowl 4 02
3 Fridge 7 33
4 Ben Hur 7 19
5 White out 5 37
6 Bouncing mirror 6 26
7 Nathan’s song 6 37
8 Nightjar 5 24
9 De-icer 7 45
10 Slab 8 05
Jan Kopinski, alto & ten saxes; Karl Bingham el bs; Steve Iliffe synths; Steve Harris dms.
Recorded:-
1-4 Weisen Austria. 10 July 1992;
5 Knitting Factory, New York, USA. 21 March 1991;
6-10 Banbury, UK. 17 July 1993.
Downtown Music Gallery. Sept 30 2005
PINSKI ZOO - De-Icer (Slam 206; UK) Pinski Zoo featured Jan Kopinski on tenor & alto saxes, Steve Iliffe on synth & samples, Karl Bingham on electric bass and Steve Harris on drums. This engaging, harmelodic gem was recorded live at three locations: the old Knitting Factory (3/91), Wiesen Jazz Fest in Austria (7/93) and at The Mill in Banbury, UK (7/93). Your truly was at that great gig at The Knit where Pinski Zoo played on a double bill with Curlew and both bands were hot and very well matched. Pinski Zoo are obviously influenced by Ornette's Prime Time, no small feat. Although most jazz purists have a problem with synthesizers, I find when used right and when not using those clichØd pre-set samples, synths can be used as another lead, rhythm or backing instrument. The ever-busy rhythm team of electric bass and drums is constantly in motion and locking in and dancing around the beat. Karl Bingham does a fine job of slapping that bass, which dates this material a bit, yet his inventiveness of switching between styles keep thing s moving and grooving. The bass is often the center of many of these pieces, holding the groove down, so that the others can swirl around it. Both Jan's sax and Iliffe's synth take inspired solos, sometimes weaving around one another mysteriously. What I dig about this is that the music is both danceable and interesting to listen to sitting down. A sign of the times I would think. As far as I can tell, Pinski Zoo made a couple of studio albums which are long gone, so if you want to get down with them funky folks, check out this fine live disc! - BLG
Stride This set of live performances from 1993 show how exciting a band Pinski Zoo can be. Don't be fooled by terms like 'jazz-funk' or 'free-funk'. They're pretty inadequate, as are comparisons with Prime Time. Jan Kopinski does at times echo Ornette Coleman in his saxophone playing, but there's also some of the furious intensity of the great British alto player Mike Osborne. Anyway, onmost tracks it doesn't matter who, if anyone, Kopinski sounds like, becasue this is real fusion music, where all the musicians mesh to produce slabs of jagged rhythmic sound, full of supple bass, acerbic alto, inventive percussion and keyboards. There's not much relief from these fierce interactions though occasionally one voice will surface as the stronger, as when Kopinski riffs through the opening of 'Bouncing Mirror' or Karl Bingham introduces 'Dust Bowl' with spare, taut bass lines. Play it loud. Paul Donnelly
BBC Music Magazine Although their sound is clearly indebted to Ornette Coleman's harmolodics (where each instrument plots its own path across common terrain provided by a crashing electronic beat), Nottingham's Pinski Zoo are instantly identifiable. Typically, a hypnotically repetitive riff is established, anthemic and declamatory or infectiously jaunty, and the drums carry it throughout the piece while the saxophone screams and roars, the electric bass stutters and snarls and the synthesizer provides splashes of colour. Relentless, uncompromising and loud, this is not for the faint-hearted, but for improvisational inventiveness, textural variety and sheer gutsiness, it is difficult to match. Di-Icer, their third album, was recorded live, and it captures the band's raw energy. Chris Parker
Hi-Fi News & Record Review, March 1994 ..... a timely release from Britain's mch neglected Pinski Zoo, our most forceful and original band to labour under the restrictive 'jazz' label. Over a decade together has fused them into a wondrously original unit. Here they're exploring a psychedelic tack, and - logically enough for a collection of live shots - you're most impressed by the solos; Jan Kopinski's eerie sax, Karl Bingham's Hendrix-into-funk bass and keyboardist Steve Iliffe's astonishing post-Zawinulisms. Pinski Zoo are good enough to make you want to burn down the disco - and evaporate all the watered-down 'boundary crossing' compromises that pass for modern jazz these days. Ben Watson