Born in Israel and based in New York City, guitarist Eyal Maoz has played with, amongst others, Asaf Sirkis, John Medeski, Eric Arn, Tim Berne, and John Zorn. With the Infrequent Seams label’s July 12 release of The Coincidence Masters on CD and digital, Maoz adds Greensboro, NC’s genre-bending avant string-titan Eugene Chadbourne to his list of collaborators. A full-on improvisational plunge recorded without amplifiers, the duo’s excursions are frequently abstract yet consistently welcoming.
Eyal Maoz has released two discs on John Zorn’s Tzadik label, Edom (2005) and Hope and Destruction (2009). Additionally, he’s a member of Abraxas, a band assembled to record selections from Zorn’s second book of Masada compositions, The Book of Angels, on two CDs, Abraxas (Book of Angels Volume 19) (2012) and Psychomagia (2014). Abraxas also recorded Gevurah (2019) from Zorn’s third Masada book, The Book Beri’ah.
It was in neo-klezmer outfit The Lemon Juice Quartet (alongside bassist Shanir Ezra Blumenkranz of Abraxas) that Maoz first began to draw attention. He’s also heard on Open Circuit (2012) as a member of 9Volt alongside trombonist Rick Parker, drummer Yonadav Halevy, and alto saxophonist Tim Berne, and on the eponymous album Hypercolor (2015) as part of a trio with bassist James Ilgenfritz and drummer Lukas Ligeti. To spotlight Maoz’s range, he also played on Zohove (2015), a surprisingly terrific cassette of inventive Led Zeppelin covers by the group Beninghove’s Hangmen.
There are also Maoz’s duos to consider. The first, Elementary Dialogues (2007) found him partnered with drummer Asaf Sirkis, while the second, Kost Nix (2022) was a two-guitar affair with Eric Arn that was recorded live in Vienna in 2021. Naturally, The Coincidence Masters has a few characteristics in common with Kost Nix, though the inspired energies of Maoz and Eugene Chadbourne are ultimately quite distinct. The set finds Chadbourne in excellent form.
Insanely prolific across a nearly 50-year stretch as a musician, Chadbourne’s stylistic diversity is a reality that would be impossible to make up. An early cohort of Zorn and one-third of the superb 1980s band Shockabilly, Chadbourne is surely the only individual to have covered Albert Ayler, Ernest Tubb, The Beatles, Phil Ochs, Butthole Surfers, Duke Ellington, Black Flag, Johnny Paycheck, John Coltrane, King Crimson, Buck Owens, Eric Burdon, Merle Haggard, The Byrds, Thelonious Monk, Tim Buckley, Mothers of Invention, Minutemen, and TLC. The sweet kicker is that it all comes out sounding like Chadbourne.
He’s also a fine writer of songs, many of them in classic folk protest mode, but more germane to this review, he’s a staunch avant-gardist and free improvisor, which brings us back around to Zorn. An indefatigable collaborator, Chadbourne has played live and recorded in duos with Zorn, Jimmy Carl Black, Han Bennink, Derek Bailey, Tony Trischka, Don Moye, Kevin Blechdom, and Anthony Braxton (group collabs include Camper Van Beethoven, Violent Femmes, Corrosion of Conformity, Sun City Girls, and Leftover Salmon).
To get back to Maoz’s range, he can lay it down in a heavy rock context beyond the Zeppelin zone, as his work in Abraxas and his Tzadik albums can exude appealing fusion-esque vibes. He’s expectedly looser in improv duo mode, but his and Chadbourne’s comfort with preordained structure helps to bring an underlying cohesion to the abstraction that’s very subtle.
Maoz brought a new set of pedals to the session (June 10, 2022, NYC), his gear worth noting, as he sounds different than I’ve heard him before. The brief “Words Are Not Intended” is futuristic and borderline video game-like, giving way to “Two Guitarists,” which is exactly that, Chadbourne recognizable but perhaps a bit restrained in putting his improv personality across, although “Two Guitarists” is more than a bit reminiscent of the early Chadbourne-Zorn outings.
But then Maoz gets introspective and starts to float prettily in contrast to Chadbourne’s flurries and tangles. Next, “Improvisation Enthusiasm” raises the intensity with some glorious duo note spillage before downshifting into a darker, sparser atmosphere. Maoz gives his pedals a workout at the start of “On-the-Spot,” recalling Dustin Wong as Chadbourne adds some structural underpinning.
The Coincidence Masters mostly consists of shorter pieces (in the case of “Words Are Not Intended” and “Eager for the Ad-Lib,” very short), but there are two selections, “Unexpected, Even for Us” and “Naming Comforts People,” where they stretch out to ten minutes or more and get a little more than fleetingly structural.
The disc’s tracks flow together nicely, but there are still distinctions to be made. In “We Need It” Maoz flirts with some springy, Mary Halvorson-like effects, “All Through” dishes some cool acid rock soloing (I’m guessing this is Chadbourne), and in “The Last Track” Maoz’s guitar is momentarily rendered as skittering and brittle.
The Coincidence Masters is a brilliant, unpredictable work highly recommended for adventurous listeners, but the lack of abrasiveness and sense of poise should make it a fine point of entry for those seeking an introduction to free improvisation.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A
