Gutbucket consists of Ty Citerman on guitar, Ken Thomson on saxophone,
Adam D. Goldon drums and Pat Swoboda on bass. For over fifteen years they have
been playing an energetic brand of music that blends the virtuosity of avant garde
jazz with the volume of progressive rock. This is a live recording from The
Stone in New York City and it shows how exciting the band can be in that setting.
“Luton” opens the album with thick bass and strong drumming, adding squalls of electric
guitar and saxophone, pushing the energy level to a cool modern free jazz and fusion
combination with snaking rhythm and complex playing. The energy level is very
high and exciting, and reaches a great crescendo of gushing music. The fast
nature of the music continues on “Exercise” developing very well with the band
kicking hard. The band is moving into blistering tempos, with the saxophone
digging and snarling guitar keeping pace. On this track they prove themselves
to be a wailing powerful juggernaut of a band. “Rum Spring” has a little bit
slower and milder saxophone developing a nice rhythm with the drums, building
to a more complex choppy section of improvisation with the music rising in
pitch to the full band reaching a secure medium-up tempo punctuated by exclamations
of saxophone, then finishing at a blistering pace. There is a skull crushing
riff to “So Many Little “ then quiet abstraction before building to a dynamic
of heavy metal sludge, thudding drums, thick reaching sax, and blasts of all
out powerful music calling out amidst the slabs of raw sound. “Bounce Clap Shasta!”
has a nice funky feel from the bass and drums as they develop a fun feel to the
music then promptly subvert it with a more nervous disjointed section. Citerman
takes a growling guitar solo over very powerful bass and drums, which makes for
a very wild interlude, before the bands downshift to a quiet and somber
conclusion. The band develops a craggy sensibility for “Buseve” led by fast and
very nimble guitar and saxophone along with lithe bass and drums. It makes for
very exciting music because everything is so fast and the band very tight and
compact, like a skater pulling her arms inward to spin ever faster. This music
is fast tight modern jazz very good collective improvisation everybody pulling
together. On “2 Is Not Enough” the set and the album ends super fast full band
riot, it’s great stuff full of humor and grace and rolling inexorably forward making a short howling blast of energy. This
album worked very well, the group worked hard to make the small cramped club
into a theatre for their unique music and it captured them at their finest. 
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