Marc Ribot’s Ceramic Dog – the visionary post-fusion rock trio making up guitarist/songwriter/activist Marc Ribot, bassist Shahzad Ismaily, and drummer/percussionist Ches Smith – are happy to reveal their excitedly waited for 5th album, Connectionavailable today through Knockwurst Records.
Declared by Ribot to be “the best record we’ve ever done,” Connection sees Ceramic Dog enhancing their long flirtation with different stress of rock ‘n’ roll while staying totally entrenched in their signature technique to improvised music, enhanced by contributions by such unique visitors as singer-songwriter Syd Straw, keyboardist Anthony Coleman, saxophonist James Brandon Lewis, organist Greg Lewis, clarinetist Oscar Noriega, and cellist Peter Sachon. The album is highlighted by such bracing brand-new tunes as the relentless title track, “Connection,” the anthemic manifesto, “Soldiers In the Army of Love,” and the lovely brand-new single, “Ecstasy,” all available now for streaming and download.
LISTEN TO “ECSTASY”
STREAM / PURCHASE CONNECTION
“‘I don’t want you to give me nothin. Unless you give me…ecstasy.’ The song’s opening lyric functions as the personal statement of the lyric’s partly deranged, partly revolutionary, but not entirely unreliable narrator,” says Marc Ribot of “Ecstasy.” “It’s also as close to a mission statement as Ceramic Dog has ever come: this band just has to ‘try for the kingdom’ every night and 99 and 1/2 won’t do.
“Musically, the song harkens back to the garage band Cuban Son of ‘Cubanos Postizos,’ with a little Farfisa help from Postizo keyboardist Anthony Coleman, the legendary Syd Straw on background vocals, and my electric tres channeling some of Arsenio Rodriquez’s ghosts…The Caribbean connoisseur might locate Ches Smith’s drums/percussion a bit closer to Haiti than Cuba (see his project, We All Break), and Shahzad Ismaily’s bass playing is a new invention entirely.
“So… ‘Ecstasy’ is a mix – but a mix that could have only happened in NYC… ‘I bought a pistol from a brother down on Hester Street, and now I think somebody’s bleeding, but it feels to me like…Ecstasy.’ The Downtown Hester Street gun store (rumored to be the location inspiring Tom Waits’ vow to ‘never kiss a Gun Street girl again’) is no longer there. But ‘Ecstasy’ (and ecstasy) has always been about ghosts, and vibes…not real estate.”
LISTEN TO “SOLDIERS IN THE ARMY OF LOVE”
LISTEN TO “CONNECTION”
Ceramic Dog will commemorate Connection with a hectic live schedule that consists of a much awaited West Coast co-headline trip together with revolutionary jazz quartet The Bad Plus. The dates begin October 13 at Mesa, AZ’s Mesa Art Center and continue through the month. For total information and ticket details, please see www.marcribot.com/tour-dates.
MARC RIBOT’S CERAMIC DOG
TRIP 2023-2024
AUGUST
19 – Marlboro, VT – Sonic Circus Festival (Ceramic Dog just)
OCTOBER
13 – Mesa, AZ – Mesa Arts Center
14 – Seattle, WA – Earshot Jazz Festival @ Town Hall
15 – Portland, OR – PDX Jazz @ Revolution Hall
16 – Vancouver, BC – Captain University*
20 – Los Angeles, CA – Teragram Ballroom
21 – Denver, CO – Bluebird Theater
22 – Ft. Collins, CO – Washington’s
All Dates w/ The Bad Plus Except *
With Connection, Marc Ribot’s Ceramic Dog have actually pressed their long-brewing stress in between conventional pop songcraft and avantgarde improvisational music to the snapping point, bridging their traditional genre-agnostic technique with aspects of glam boogie, minimalist disco, psychedelic boogaloo, garage-punk-against-the-machine agitprop, therefore a lot more. Recorded at Figure 8 Recording in Brooklyn, NY, and blended by Ben Greenberg (Danny Elfman, Depeche Mode, Show Me the Body) the album sees Ribot – whose prodigious, impossible-to-categorize body of work as bandleader and artist covers no wave and jazz, Brazilian and Cuban music, roots and progressive and demonstration tunes (frequently at the very same time) together with famous partnerships with Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, The Lounge Lizards, John Zorn, Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, Caetano Veloso, and Laurie Anderson (to call however a couple of) – continuing to make use of Ceramic Dog as the vessel for his distinct stream-of-consciousness songwriting, penning 3 out of the album’s 4 singing tracks consisting of the groove-infected “Ecstasy” (showcasing Anthony Coleman’s slinky Farfisa and long time friend and partner Syd Straw behind the mic).
From the anthemic manifesto “Soldiers in the Army of Love” to the unhinged ranting of “Heart Attack” and inexpressible “No Name,” Ceramic Dog release a fury of intricate time signatures, blues abstraction, and free-blowing energy to develop their most unapologetically adventurous collection so far, their unique bold evidenced by the not likely cover of Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz’s “That’s Entertainment,” composed particularly for the 1953 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musical movie The Band Wagon however here, in Ribot and Co’s hands, deconstructs Hollywood cliches while at the same time winking at both the post-punk and post-Cultural Revolution models of the Gang of Four. Fueled by what Ribot calls “several bolts of creative lightning,” Connections stands as a lively, odd, and in numerous methods conclusive turning point in what is really a particular imaginative journey for Marc Ribot and Ceramic Dog, its zeitgeist-busting noise and vision not just verifying their location in the musical universe however raising the stakes for whatever follows.
