Armageddon

Artist: William Hooker
Label: Homestead
Category: Music

Average customer rating:

Media: Audio CD

UPC: 017531022326
EAN: 0017531022326
ASIN: B000000IR4

Release Date: 1995-07-25

Related Categories:

General

| Alternative Rock | Styles | Music

Avant Garde & Free Jazz

| Jazz | Styles | Music

General

| Jazz | Styles | Music

General

| Pop | Styles | Music

Listmania:

Ken Burns don't know jack!

Tracks:

Time (Within)
Spirit World
Magus
Purge
Spirits Of Fire
Ghost Dance
State Secrets

Customer Reviews:

not hooker's best.......2004-01-11

drumb's not too far off: armageddon finds hooker in the studio with personnel shifting on every song. hooker's a powerhouse drummer, firmly in the free-jazz tradition, and given the proper setting, his records can be transcendent.

armageddon is not such a record. the tunes meander and there's too much noodling. the tinny recording quality doesn't help either.

my favorite hooker record is 'mindfulness.' it's much more focused, and even grooves in a few spots. glenn spearman helps temper hooker, and hooker draws out some serious fire from late tenor saxist. start there for a much more aproachable record.

One of Avant Garde's worst pitfalls.......2003-03-08

A recent pressing of the "Pearls Before Swine" comic strip depicted one character asking another character what the term "Avant Garde" meant. The response was, "it's French for bad," and William Hooker's Armageddon is proof of why this joke works. Avant Garde is by it's very nature expected to be complex, challenging, heady material that only a select portion of it's target audience will take any interest in, but while visionary artists like John Zorn, Mike Patton, and Trey Spruance have all used the broad genre association of Avant Garde to create an umbrella categorization which allows pushing the boundaries of conventional rock to arrive at something truly inspiring and unique, William Hooker has simply taken Avant Garde to mean: "abrasive." With no clear direction, purpose, or motive in mind, William Hooker has recorded a series of live improv. "songs" that are all so indistinguishably identical that he might as well have only included one of the 7 lengthy tracks. Even giving these songs titles is absurd because the ideas contained within are all so horribly conceived that they show no evidence whatsoever of any real thought or skill on the part of the participating musicians which could even amount to something worthy of classification. If executed correctly, improv. music can have amazing and startling results (ie: Pink Floyd, John Zorn, Sonic Youth, King Crimson, Josh Homme's Desert Sessions), but when played with no identifiable purpose in mind other than to create an abrasive pile of noise, it is extremely rare that the results will be worthwhile, and in William Hooker's case, they most definitely are not.

Dangerous Music.......2000-08-04

Hooker is one of the most unique and unabashedly dangerous players/composers existing within the free jazz idiom. The only thing I can think of that somewhat compares to this is Sonny Sharrocks Last Exit forrays. This cd recorded in 95' is just as relevant and challanging today as it was 5 years ago, high energy avant garde that slaps you in the face and kicks you in the stomach. No one is making music like this. Free jazz that packs a punk rock punch! Enter if you dare.

Dangerous Music.......2000-08-04

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