Fiasco - Anger Artist (2024) [Hi-Res]

"Anger Artist", Washington DC-based ¡FIASCO!’s first recording in nearly three years, and first release on Unit Records, is evidence of evolution in isolation, growth in relative quiet, and further extension of the group’s sonic and stylistic reach.

"Anger Artist" follows the groups two independent releases Arson (2020) and Post-Truth (2021), each of which received substantial regional acclaim and was named the “Best DC Jazz Album” by CapitalBop for 2020 and 2021, respectively. In addition to coalescing and codifying the band’s “not-jazz” aesthetic, the releases paved the way for performances at the DC Jazz Festival and with fellow jazz-adjacent acts like Messthetics and Hariett Tubman.

Recorded live with instruments, amps, drums, electronics, and bodies in a single room, the music and musicians fill the sonic space, breathing together in ways unobtainable through headphones and iso booths. The resulting sound is massive, singular, and enveloping, with musical content at times both robust and fragile, deliberate and reckless. Most importantly, it captures the sonic and human energy of the band’s live performances.

The opening sonic world, altered and refracted by electronics, gives way to throbbing neo-Zeppelin E blues on "Golden Parachute". Similar conceptually but contrary sonically, Anger Artist is something like “funk with interference”, the band reacting to electronically induced indeterminacy on the bass.

"Before Times" toys with expectations and dials back the intensity, inviting the listener to float into stark-but-lush melancholia. The odd meter of "Content" quickly disappears under a flowing melody which melts into a languid and simmering guitar/saxophone improvisation.

"Bleak > Dark" pushes the pair to a tonal breaking point, building to a screaming dirge befitting our present moment. "Drop Test" harkens back to the band’s earliest experiments with punk and grunge sounds and aesthetics over jazz forms.

Nelson Dougherty - guitar
Andrew Frankhouse - saxophone
Stephen Arnold - bass guitar
Keith Butler Jr. - drums