ENEMY'S album Betrayal

Jazz with zest and sweet drum beats

With the first drum measure of “Croydon Smash,” this album had my attention. The stutter-step of the drum on “Neglecting Number One” is matched by stutter-stepping piano that twinkles. Tracks are short. There is a main idea in each track. It's expressed or rendered as art, and then the track ends. ENEMY seems not to feel the need to “noodle” lot. There is an intensity maintained through the album, that would be lost if solos were drawn out past their expiration dates.

While I think there are improvised solos, this album seems of a kind with some of percussionist Kate Gentile's work. What might at first blush be classed as free jazz reveals itself as composed. The chaos is deliberate, with different parts working together in orchestration. Odd rhythms, odd to the surprised ear, are performed with multiple instruments hitting together on each note of a phrase. As I once read of a sax player saying about pianist Cecil Taylor, whose style was revolutionary, Taylor played something and the sax player said to himself, “There's no way he can do that again,” implying that it was not deliberate but was just random hammering on the keys. “And then he did it again!” said the sax player (to British music journalist Val Wilmer, author of the 1977 book on avant-garde jazz from 1957 to 1977, As Serious As Your Life). This way of orchestrating what may seem like free jazz is just that kind of doing it again.

The jazz feel is constant, without a tendency for poppiness. The piano, drums and bass work together tightly. On “Close Up,” the intensity of the energy is slackened, for a break for the nerves. The piano lays out a peaceful riff, and the drums and bass are where the action is, with the drums playing quieter and the bass really taking the center spot.

I got the LP, for the goodness that goes with vinyl. With Bandcamp.com, I get unlimited streaming and high quality digital downloads. While there may be some funny business to come, after Bandcamp’s acquisition by Songstr (where half of Bandcamp employees were laid off as unnecessary), as far as I know—which isn't to say that I know—artists are still getting a reasonable deal when it comes to being paid for their music.