Introduced on her 2015 Clean Feed album Save Your Breath, Kris Davis' Infrasound octet is a monster band capable of delivering a gargantuan punch. Creative jazz pianist/composer Davis is joined here by drummer Jim Black, organist Gary Versace, and electric guitarist Nate Radley, and as if they weren't enough to rattle the windows, peerless clarinetists Ben Goldberg, Oscar Noriega, Joachim Badenhorst, and Andrew Bishop add the deep vibrations of their bass and contrabass instruments to the ensemble. Then, for added oomph, Davis enlisted rock veteran producer Ron Saint Germain (Bad Brains, Sonic Youth, Living Colour) to engineer and mix the session. The album's opening moments display Davis' Infrasound conception at its most acute, as "Union Forever" (aka "Union" on the 2012 album of the same name by Paradoxical Frog) begins with a circular spiraling motif layered in counterpoint; after a brief retreat, the group's phrasing becomes more clipped and knotty, accentuated by Black's powerfully incisive drumwork in bold contrast to the rounded tones of the clarinets. As the electric instruments enter, "Union Forever" becomes downright Rock in Opposition-tinged avant-proggy, but the octet remains improvisational at heart, with dark chording beneath a moody Noriega clarinet feature as the music escalates in urgency, retreating and then ramping up into a dissonant and powerfully pounding finale with second soloist Versace abandoning all sense of restraint in his keyboard attack.

1		Union Forever
2		Jumping over Your Shadow
3		Always Leave Them (Wanting More)
4		Whirly Swirly
5		The Gost of Your Previous Fuckup
6		Save Your Breath

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