Gat, Yonatan - Universalists CD (Mega Blowout Sale)
SKU
23-Tak:Til 058
"Yonatan Gat is a guitarist, producer and experimental composer based in NYC. Gat became known as one of the world's top performers as founder and guitarist of Monotonix, hailed by SPIN as "the most exciting live band in rock’n’roll,” with concerts that destroyed the border between performer and audience, and were controversial enough to get them banned from playing their home country of Israel.
Gat then relocated to New York City. He began recording and performing as a solo artist, and in 2014 released the Iberian Passage EP, a debut that maintained his signature raw energy while switching the focus away from the shock-performance style of Monotonix to a more ritualistic, improvised, shamanic musical exploration.
In 2015, the genre-bending full-length Director was released. Composed mostly of live-to-tape improvisations by his trio and field recordings made by Gat, the record was a mind-melting exploration through many different styles of music, from Brazilian psych and Afrobeat to free jazz, surf, and 20th century avant-garde.
Three years on, Gat returns with Universalists, an album that marks an ambitious and expansive next step. As on Director, Universalists once again showcases the muscular trio of Gat on guitar, Gal Lazer on drums, and Sergio Sayeg on bass. The performances are breathtaking, showcasing a band of fire and finesse.
Charged with a confrontational urgency and hurtling through space on a helter-skelter global time warp, this is a record that bursts with transcendent energy – ripping punk, brutal noise, composed moments of pristine beauty, live-to-tape improvisation, cutting-edge vocal sampling, all brought together by Gat’s sui generis guitar playing."
“Israeli guitarist Yonatan Gat seamlessly blended a cornucopia of styles on his 2015 album, Director, which was fully improvised along with regular collaborators Gal Lazer (drums) and Sergio Sayeg (bass). The same trio recorded 2018 follow-up Universalists, but the results are even more ambitious and ecstatic. Gat incorporates vocal samples and guest artists spanning several nations and cultures, all meshing to form an unnamed form of music in the name of universal harmony. It's never an easy, smooth listen, however -- it's jarring and rambunctious, sometimes interrupted by glitches and tape edits reminiscent of some of the Boredoms' later work. Opener "Cue the Machines" dices samples from an Alan Lomax-recorded Italian choir into a choppy wave of surf jazz that would make John Zorn jealous. "Cockfight" submerges gamelan percussion underneath furious thrashing and fluid guitar bending. Less frenetic and more sacred is "Medicine," a joyous song of praise featuring Rhode Island-based powwow ensemble Eastern Medicine Singers. "Fading Casino" and "Sightseer" are also on the peaceful side, but the twilit melodies and echo-soaked vocals are still delivered with euphoric rushes of drums and a general feeling of enrapturement. The trio goes to emotional extremes during the most ambitious piece, "Chronology," which begins as a dizzying splatter attack before a lonesome voice leads into a cloud of uncertainty, ending with harsh, stuttering edits taken from different live recordings of the group, forcing them to cooperate together. While challenging, the album seems to symbolize a struggle to achieve balance and harmony, and the results are frequently exciting.” - AllMusic
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