Sound for the Organization of Society

Founded in New Orleans and geographically scattered after Hurricane Katrina, this ten-piece ensemble, like their place of origin, is a melting pot of divergent styles, approaches and music. Dedicated to sustaining a "hierarchical equality" amongst its members, Sound for the Organization of Society's musicians contribute and maintain a "pool of compositional forms" that's the alphabet of the group's musical language. The title track has shape, melody and orchestration from Indonesian gamelan music, but with some NYC downtown jazz blowing and Bach-like flourishes. The intensity in the unison declamation of "Darrell's Ellipse" has a Zorn-ish resonance but Chris Mosley's fretless guitar uses its elliptical logic to take the piece in an entirely different direction before returning to its muscular theme. "Research of an Aesthetic" starts with a Brotzman saxophone assault, yielding to pointillistic pianisms before returning to flat-out blowing that's interrupted by mysterious electric piano and fluttering drums. "Constanence" has an engaging ensemble opening, with a repeated line and drum backing that yields to a lyrical soprano sax solo with intermittent intonation issues. "Ode to 89" is perhaps the strongest track: hypnotic, celebratory and wholly uplifting. Short poems of socio-political, philosophic gambits punctuate the 12-track, hour-long CD. Sound for the Organization of Society are an intriguing social/musical aggregation and their music is engaging and thoroughly listenable.