DEFUNKT — Thermonuclear Sweat (review)

DEFUNKT — Thermonuclear Sweat album cover Album · 1982 · Funk Jazz Buy this album from MMA partners
3/5 ·
js
Joeseph Bowie was a working member of the 70s NYC avant-jazz set when he happened to be in the right place at the right time to be pulled into New York's new up and coming so called punk-jazz scene. Joe first worked with the unintentional originators of this scene, Ornette Coleman and James Ulmer, as a sideman as they introduced a new gritty energetic form of fusion that was an antidote for LA's bland fuzak. After that, Joe worked with one of NYC's first full-blown post-punk jazz poseurs, James White, in one of his many tongue-in-cheek cynical and sarcastic funk ensembles. From there Bowie struck out on his own with his Defunkt group that borrowed from James White's punky ascetic, but introduced far better musicianship and more sincere lyrics and presentation. Thermo Nuclear Sweat is the second outing for Bowie's Defunkt ensemble, and it finds them already searching for what they might do next when the jazz-punk fad will inevitably fade. Most of this album is fairly similar to the first with a lot of raw funk tunes played with punkish abandon and avant jazz chops, but the wave of trendy enthusiasm that gave the first album a lot of propulsion is starting to show signs of doubt on this second outing. In the ever changing NYC music scene, post punk irony is about to be replaced by the more spartan hardcore scene and Defunkt's funky pork pie hats will be replaced by Last Exit's brutal primal scream in the world of avant-jazz rock. Surely a bad sign is the fact that Defunkt includes two classic jazz tunes on here that are passed off as post-punk lounge ironica, when in fact the band just copped out and fell back on the standard working tunes of their jazz days because they were running out of ideas.

The big plus on here is the guitar work of Vernon Reid who plays wacky deconstructionist solos on the jazz tunes, and searing psychedelia on the mostly instrumental rock-funk number Ooh Baby. Joeseph is great on the trombone as usual, but he can't sing and neither can the rest of his group with their almost shouted back-ups. The repetitive almost spoken monotone 'beatnik' vocals are always a minus with this band. Defunkt would have been a lot more powerful with a real singer. Anyway, overall this is a fun album and a great time capsule of NYC club life in the early 80s.
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