One cannot possibly describe the action going on during WorldService Project's For King & Country on London's RareNoise Records. It's inexplicable, outrageous and dares you not to like it. But if you're like me, born into rock and raised on fusion, metal, the avant-garde, King Crimson and Led Zeppelin, there's something about these eight blasphemies that will appeal to your sense of rebellion
It's punk. That's right. Record store owners may place this in the jazz rack and they wouldn't exactly be wrong but this is punk. Punk, in its true essence, is an attitude anyway, able to traverse across whatever genre it infests. Sure, its infantile manifestation was within rock'n'roll but take that spit and spirit into other genres and you have a surefire bonfire of raging proportions. Thus, welcome to the world of punk-jazz.
Blame keyboardist/composer Dave Morecroft. This follow-up to 2012's Fire in a Pet Shop even features a loathsome character from that earlier CD: "Mr. Giggles," who, as any kid who's ever been scared by a clown can tell you, is to be kept at far lengths away. Morecroft's merry band of pranksters are on sax, trombone, bass and drums but they play as if their skin is on fire.
You'd think it was an instrumental prog-rock project when opener "Flick the Beanstalk" sets this scene. When the "Fuming Duck" enters, though, one doesn't know what to think what with its odd angled meters, fuzz bass and Raphael Clarkson's electric trombone. One supposes that it's jazz at the outset of "Murano Faro" but that track morphs into a monster.
As the CD's rollicking and ranting craziness gets even more intense, one must think Frank Zappa, cartoon ska, horror soundtrack and maybe even the funkier fringes of the avant-garde. This Project is, indeed, a world service, perfect for those seekers amongst us. Rare noise, anybody?
