"As Hurricane Floyd lashed Massachusetts in September 1999, the interior of the Old Cambridge Baptist Church in Harvard Square was receiving a heftybattering at the hands of this ferocious trio. Drummer Toshi Makihara furnishes a groundswell of percussive billows and flailed cymbals. Saxophonist Wally Shoup's penetrating alto sears through the murk like streams of liquid fire. And Thurston Moore unleashes a barrage ofstratospheric rumbling and cataclysmic roars. Yet his is a controlled furyinvolving the constant curbing and channeling of his electric gunboatstorrential emissions in order to connect to the music's other elements. The set comprises three trios. After the second, Moore feigns the innocence ofthe unplugged with an acoustic guitar solo called 'Altar Boy, ChurchBasement'. The crypts resonant acoustics, Moore's forthright attack andcareful marshalling of overtones generate their own kind of electric charge. The air bristles. To regard his free activities as an eccentric departurefrom his real work with Sonic Youth doesn't do justice to the practical reality or the spirit of his musicianship. His relatively obscurecollaborators here bear appropriate credentials. Shoup was formerly based in Alabama, where he played with violinist LaDonna Smith and guitarist Davey Williams. Since moving north, he now organizes the Seattle Improvised MusicFestival. Makihara trained as an improvisor in Japan before settling inPhiladelphia. He has traded blows with John Zorn, William Parker and Peter Brotzmann. Yet Hurricane Floyd is not unrelieved assault. Some passages approach tranquility, yet you can sense the pressure inexorably buildingtowards eruption. At times, when the onslaught abates, the buffeting outsidebecomes audible: an eerie equilibrium of forces.
JULIAN COWLEY, THE WIRE, NOV. 2000
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From ALL About Jazz
http://www.allaboutjazz.com/REVIEWS/R1200_068.HTM
Hurricane FloydThurston Moore/Wally Shoup/Toshi Makihara (Sublingual Records)
By Nils Jacobson
The title of Hurricane Floyd, as you might imagine, has two meanings. First, it describes the meterological phenomenon ongoing during theperformance (yes, hurricanes do actually make it to Boston on occasion). Second, it refers to the intensity of the free improvisation which occurredin the shelter of the church where these three musicians briefly joinedforces. Now it must be said up front that not all of this performance fallsinto the category of 'stormy,' but the most ecstatic and enthralling moments definitely have a striking emotional edge. (The last track, for example, hasplenty of quiet moments where the tension simmers without boiling over.) Atsome point in its history, free improvisation embraced an important soundconcept from John Cage. Improvisers gradually recognized that theirinstruments deserve to be liberated from their design. In the same way the prepared piano divorced itself from the standard version, this groupconsciously steps free from the traditional sounds of asaxophone/guitar/drums trio. Saxophonist Wally Shoup rarely plays melodiclines in the usual sense, preferring twisted, overblown arcs of sound in theAylerian tradition. (On portions of the last track, he employs an organicbluesy tone as the foundation for the squeaks and squeals that evolve.)Guitarist Thurston Moore of course has the distortion pedal generallycranked, and he scratches and scribbles at the guitar to the point whereindividual tones cease to be identifiable. At peak intensity, the onlydiscernable guitar sounds are shiny glittering bursts of square waves. (Onegripe: the hum from his amp provides an unrelenting backdrop to theperformance, even when he's not playing.) Drummer Toshi Makihara relies on afairly standard reduced kit, but he too refuses to fall into any simplecategory of sound. From a third-person perspective, he assembles anambivalent assortment of polyrhythms, cymbal bursts, and snare rolls whichconform to the flow of the improvisation more than they define it. The third track on the record provides a brief but welcome respite from the unbroken tension of the first half of the record. (In the original gig, this piececame first. But in the wisdom of tracking the CD, producer Jonathan LaMaster saw fit to rearrange things a bit.) On the solo track "Altar Boy," Moore ventures into uncharacteristically resonant folky textures--before travellingright back "out." Then the three-way conversation that came earlier resumes in earnest. Hurricane Floyd is hardly a record for the average jazz listener; these are, after all, hardly average players. But tension in free improvisation is sort of like hot pepper spice: once you've had a taste ofit, you find it can boost your enjoyment of all sorts of other flavors. Either that or you run back to the blandness of salt and pepper. TrackListing: 1 [Trio]; 2 [Trio]; Altar Boy, Church Basement [solo guitar];Retribution of Sorts [Trio]. Personnel: Thurston Moore, guitar; Wally Shoup, alto saxophone; Toshi Makihara, percussion.
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CD Review Earshot Jazz Magazine "Hurricane Floyd"
It's no secret that guitarist Thurston Moore's more recognized among the music-consuming public than alto saxophonist Wally Shoup. Still a shame, though. Shoup's work with Project W has documented a fiercely cultivated musical intellect and passion. Shoup's tireless investigations into the nature of phrases and their logical construction is awesome to witness in any context and Hurricane Floyd -with Moore and drummer Toshi Makihara offers a smashing opportunity.Here's Shoup fluttering acidly, interjecting yawping intervals, and firing off rapid peals of pinpointedly hot alto, as Makihara clatters around the drum kit, embracing the snare's driving power one second and finding little pockets of décor and punctuation the next on his rim, cymbals, and the edges of his tom-toms.Moore, whose guitar-wielding figure and facial grimace grace Hurricane Floyd's cover, sounds better between Shoup and Makihara than he has sounded on other improvisational ventures, as if his focus is better or his sense of the balance between energy and abstraction is getting more finely tuned.This balance abstraction on the one hand and energy-school blasting on the other sounds like the crux of Hurricane Floyd. Shoup seems content to blast away with Makihara pounding his kit and Moore sirening and careening into oblivion. But then he's also thrilled to work through the minutiae of little micro-tonal pockets that get plinking, clanking spot checks from Makihara and delicately skewered embroidery from Moore.At times, the trio sounds best speeding along feverishly. Then they confuse and sound so intense at glacial exploration.Then there's Moore's "Altar Boy, Church Basement," a seven-minute solo acoustic guitar piece that creates a fine interlude between trio segments. Moore comes off as a John Fahey-like player, interested in everything, all at once. And with Shoup and Makihara, he sounds able to do just that. So do Shoup and Makihara, for that matter. Here's hoping that Moore's other band can take this trio on the road and win some converts.
-Andrew Bartlett - September 2000
