The sound of the New York City-based trio of saxophonist Ayumi Ishito, drummer Kevin Shea, and guitarist George Draguns has been awarded the tag of avant-punk. As the four tracks that shape up their debut album Roboquarians Vol. 2 unwind, that stylistic assessment hits the target right in the bullseye. Often more enveloping than an unrelenting barrage of skronk, the group can still work up a pummeling racket and lay down the scorch. The set is out now on CD in a limited edition of 100 copies.
The first question many will be asking is how this set is a debut and also a second volume. The scoop is that the album is rooted in a prior project featuring Shea and Draguns and unnamed others that stalled out creatively. Shea and Draguns were cool with their parts however, so they isolated their playing, preserved it, and then invited Ishito to make the final contribution, cohesive but also expansive and wonderfully effects-driven.
Roboquarians Vol. 2 was finalized in March, 2021 at Metropolitan Sound in Brooklyn. The three reconvened at the same location in September, 2022 for another session, and in March, 2024, that return to the studio was released as Roboquarians Vol. 1.
Shea and Draguns began playing together in the mid-1990s as part of Storm & Stress, an experimental rock outfit from Pittsburgh (Ian Williams, later of Battles, completed the trio). Making their way to Chicago, they released a pair of records on the Touch and Go label (Draguns exited the band prior to the second). In 2014 Shea and Draguns roped in Nick Millevoi to record an eponymous album as Form and Mess.
Since 2005, a big hunk of Shea’s time has been devoted to the heavyweight jazz ensemble Mostly Other People Do the Killing, but he regularly steps out into other scenarios, including working in the trio Entropic Hop with guitarist Aron Namenwirth and Ishito, who has made a sizeable NYC splash herself fairly recently in the groups Attitude! and Strong Swimmers along with leading the Spacemen and her own quintet.
Vol. 2 finds Ishito in full bloom. In opener “Aromatherapy for Erzulie,” the set’s shortest track, her playing is rarely recognizable as saxophone, instead reminiscent of rippling, squirting, and spurting synths or woozy wah-wah pedals as Draguns alternates tropical-tinged guitar lines with spikier clusters and Shea just rolls with spastic, thunderous precision.
“False Positive” is the first of three lengthier tracks (all are 10 to 11 minutes long) and the result is an ensemble thrust that cascades and swirls and soars as much at it explodes. Thanks to Shea, there is still plenty of propulsive battering in the mix, but he has an expert sense of control; never is he just flailing about, but rather picking his spots for maximum impact as he (along with his counterparts) turn up the heat during the final track “Con-Fusion.”
It’s in these final minutes that the trio harkens back to and lingers in that spot where ex-hardcore cats absorbed the freedom impulse as handed down from their elders and then just went for broke. Ishito is at her wildest, manipulating her sax until it wiggles like possessed slide-whistles, drugged-up and groggy car horns, and pissed-off theremins. Her playing is the icing on Roboquarians Vol. 2’s most delicious cake.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A
