This came out in 2000 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
Normally, when I hear the words “improvised avant-garde jazz,” I reach for the skip button. Not so with New York electronicist and saxophonist Briggan Krauss.
Unlike the clattering cacophony that passes for too much so-called free jazz these days, Krauss’s work is a marvel of subtlety and texture. Over top of a canvas of improvised electronica — blooping synths, scuttling percussion, echo and reverb manipulations — he dab splashes of colour with his alto horn, bits of percussion and even turntable scratching. Sure, sometimes his artsy constructs resemble someone pounding nails with a cymbal into an old radio while a foghorn goes off in the background. But at other times, it’s the siren song of aliens communicating with whales. Now and then it even rocks — gird your loins for the Jesus Lizardy stomp on Encumbrance Essence — or soothes, like the Lucy In The Sky-style harpsichord of Flu Coasting. But it’s never less than ear-opening.