Customer Reviews

Golden Palominos

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This release blew the doors off my perception of music when I first heard it back in the early 80's. While the DMX programming sounds somewhat dated, this over looked classic demands a re- listen. Featuring a no wave supergroup consisting of Anton Fier, Arto Lindsay, Bill Laswell, John Zorn, Jamaladeen Tacuma, David Moss, Michael Beinhorn, Fred Frith and others I can't recall, this group threw noise, funk, hip hop, sound collage and a couple other influences into a "post rock stew" that few groups have equalled since. A few of the many highlights include the avant funk of "Clean Plate", the pulverizing groove of "I.D." and Zorn's bird call solo on "Monday Night". Put down your cd's from all those Chicago deep thinkers and give this a spin.

This band came out of the extended improv and soundscape scene around the basement of a pet store (Exotic Equatic) and the harmolodic scene. The band came together after Ronald Shannon Jackson's Decoding Society and James Chance and the Contortions but before Massacre. I hitched down to NYC to catch the band's debut at the Public Theater (they hadn't released the album yet) and the sound was mindblowing. Anton Fier locked in the funk with Bill Laswell and Jamaaladeen Tacuma and David Moss, Fred Frith and John Zorn provided a screeching cacophony to float on top. Arto Lindsay provided blasts of detuned guitar, vocal sounds/words and kept his glasses from falling off his nose.

This record captures that time yet remains timeless (despite the drum programs). Goes well with Laswell's Baselines and Material's first album.

http://www.amazon.com/Baselines-Bill-Laswell/dp/B00000369W/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1290533035&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/Memory-Serves-Material/dp/B000003BIY/ref=sr_1_9?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1290533096&sr=1-9

http://www.amazon.com/Killing-Time-Massacre/dp/B000CCBPUA/ref=pd_sim_m_14

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This is a unique item in Anton Fier's (and Golden Palomino's) discography. Doesn't resemble any other Palominos record, instead belongs to the same bag as early Jamaaladeen Tacuma records and James Blood Ulmer's harmolodic funk (esp. Music Revelations Ensemble CDs) and the more aggressive Bill Laswell projects. It's all about basses and drums attacking full force, creating a weirdly polyrythmic funk-rock groove, on top of which disturbing effects and noise float.

Very good.

This is a very avant-garde recording and is total magic, and it is pure art. Bill Laswell leads his stellar cast including short guest appearance by bassist Jamaaladeen Tacuma. There is a lot of DMX percussion programming in this but that doesn't prevent it from sounding fresh and improvisational. In fact the DMX programming by Fier is basically a "Heavy Skeleton" over which the rest of the sound effects, rap, sound sculptures, and Laswell's bass is draped. It is ALIVE. I am listening to this as I am writing this and this recording is as vital today as it was 22 years ago when I first heard it.

My only critical statement would be that, with the next Golden Palominos album, Fier and Laswell seemed to have gone too commercial, "sold out" as it were, and I didn't hear anything nearly as musically vibrant or interesting.

That's why I suggest and endorse this recording whole-heartedly. It deserves a listen before it is filed away into obscurity.

I bought this and enjoyed it while back in college about 18 years ago, and never stopped liking it. I've just heard it again for the first time in 10 years, while listening to a lot of Bill Laswell projects, and I have to say this might be the best of those records Bill was involved with (Material's "Memory Serves" and "Seven Souls" being two other great ones, and Nicky Skopelitis's "Ekstasis" another).

The drums are fat and all over the place, and Laswell's (mostly) bass is totally in place and the beat is fat and massive. The noise generated on top (vocals, guitar, bird calls, small horns, sctaches and shrieks) is wonderful. The record is OUT THERE by nearly anyone's standards, really adventurous, but powerful at all times. It's just fantasic music, really great stuff. 20 years down the line it probably appeals to more people than could have enjoyed this in its time.

Influence not obvious to most but definitely in there, especially in Fier's playing : Can.

When my friends ask me what unusual, underrated, or unknown albums I'd recommend to them (this isn't pure egotism on my part - they're taking advantage of my 14 years as a college radio DJ), then this usually tops the list.

At which point I have to try and describe what this CD actually sounds like... The best I can usually come up with is 'avant-garde funk-jazz fusion', but that seems so pathetically inadequate.

Let's just put it this way, if the following names mean anything to you, you have to buy this CD: Anton Fier, Arto Lindsay, Fred Frith, Bill Laswell, John Zorn, Nicky Skopelitis. If those names _don't_ mean anything to you, then what the hell, buy it anyway. Whether you love it or hate it, I guarantee you you'll never hear anything quite like it again.

PS: but be warned that the late 80's / early 90s Golden Palominos albums - Anton Fier with various second-rate 'alternative' artists - are very different.

The New York studio collective known as The Golden Palominos were well-known for changing musical styles more frequently then people change their clothes. On their 1983 self-titled debut, drummer & group leader Anton Fier reels into the studio some of New York's most well-known, avant-garde jazz-fusion greats, such as Bill Laswell, Fred Frith, Arto Lindsay, and John Zorn. To sum them up in a single sentence, this 1st incarnation of the group sounds like King Crimson times two. It's a very bizarre, eclectic, progressive-sounding hodgepodge of funk, jazz, strange noises, vocal gibberish, and instrumental noodling. The first time I played this album, I was very perplexed---this wasn't the Palominos group I knew and loved from "Pure" and "This Is How It Feels" (and boy, did I miss Lori Carson's lovely voice). But after several more spins, the album finally grew on me. It's pretty trippy stuff and it's not for everybody, but there's no denying how daring & envelope-pushing this original version of the Palominos were. The best stuff on this disc are the funky jams "Clean Plate," "Monday Night," and "I.D.," featuring solid thump-drumming from Fier, Bill Laswell's fat basslines, and Arto Lindsay's weird, off-kilter vocals, while experimental exercises like "Hot Seat" and "Cookout" are also very intriguing. This album would be the Golden Palominos' only trip down the avant-garde jazz-fusion road, as Anton Fier would bring in a whole new set of musicians & singers for the group's next album, the more accessible "Visions Of Excess," including R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe, Jack Bruce of Cream, and the Sex Pistol's John Lydon. But it all started here---the Golden Palominos' self-titled debut is a very bold album that pulls no punches, and it won't appeal to everyone. But for those who can handle it, there is much to admire.