Local CD spotlight June 05 2002

Atlanta’s free improv scene has certainly experienced its share of ups and downs — most of the ups, unfortunately, taking place in the mid- to late 1980s. That said, Wholy Ghost, the new double CD by Atlanta’s Konx, has the sound and feel of an ’80s free jazz/ psychedelic improv pow-wow, referencing such musical pioneers as Nurse With Wound, Swell Maps, Frank Lowe and Arthur Doyle’s work with the Blue Humans.

In fact, Doyle guests on four tracks from the first CD, playing tenor sax and singing. He contributes a raw, emotive sense of drunken yearning. Most of the first disc sounds like a soundtrack to some pagan ritual, tempting listeners in and out of consciousness before dropping them off in a basement jazz club.

Actually, it’s the vocal pieces that really stand out in this set, most of which was recorded live at the Eyedrum. Doyle, along with the fellow guest singers Joseph Zitt and Hormuz Minina, successfully create their own primal vocabularies, rendering their voices as bizarre, foreign, almost other worldly instruments. Saxophonist Robert Cheatam’s Albert Ayler-esque moanings help too.

Konx plays Wed., June 5, at NoNo, 595 North Ave.??