Another Brilliant Noir Instrumental Album from Beninghove’s Hangmen

by delarue

Bandleader Bryan Beninghove is a jazz saxophonist with a busy schedule around the New York area, and writes a lot for film and tv. He has a distinctive, individual voice on the soprano sax; he also plays tenor, and melodica as well. Back in 2011, he and his band Beninghove’s Hangmen put out a richly creepy, eclectically cinematic debut album of noir theme music which was one of that year’s best. They’ve got a new one, Rattlesnake Chopper just out, streaming at their Bandcamp page, and it’s every bit as murderously intense. They’re playing the album release show this Friday, May 17 at Nublu at 10 PM.

The Hangmen’s lineup this time out is pretty much the same: guitarists and John Zorn alums Eyal Maoz and Dane Johnson, trombonist Rick Parker (of similarly dark Bartok jazz project Little Worlds and a million other bands), Shawn Baltazor on drums, and Kellen Harrison on bass (dub maven and Super Hi-Fi leader Ezra Gale takes over on bass for the show).

Where the debut album was more of a jazz record, this one is horror surf rock along with a couple of lively departures into gypsy jazz (Beninghove also plays that style of music in the memorably named Jersey City group Manouche Bag) and noiserock. The darker material here brings to mind another great New York band, the Coffin Daggers; Maoz’ presence here adds a Middle Eastern edge similar to his own high-voltage instrumental rock band, Edom. The title track, which opens the album, could be the Hells’ Angels’ theme, a slowly marauding, minor-key biker rock groove with lurid neon horn harmonies, an absolutely sick Maoz solo followed by…a theremin solo. Hangmen’s Manouche has a jaunty swing, Beninghove’s carefree melodica and tenor sax contrasting with Parker’s brooding trombone and Johnson’s surreallistically warped Jeff Lynne guitar. One of Beninghove’s best songs, Surf n’ Turk works a menacing Anatolian guitar riff that everyone who plays an instrument will be trying to figure out: it’s absurdly catchy, but it’s tricky and it’s the darkest thing here.

Choro Clock D’Lite begins as aa bubbly soca theme, adds a weird undercurrent with Johnson’s outer-space EFX, then heads to New Orleans. The album’s other horror surf masterpiece, Surfin’ Satie builds variations on a macabre, reverb-drenched chromatic theme, a shivery tenor sax solo handing off to a jagged guitar duel. The final track, Powerstine, slows things down to a sludgy Macedonian-flavored grind and then picks up, gypsy-tinged soprano sax leading the way. Best album of 2013? One of them, no question.

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