Marc Ribot's Ceramic Dog - Connection

Connection is Ceramic Dog's 5th recording (or 6th, if one counts the Bandcamp digital only EP What I Did On My Long Vacation, or 7th including the Deerhoof collaboration).It's also their best...a work that doesn't resolve the tension between Ceramic Dog's (not-so-post) punk/new music/free jazz points of departure and the pop ambitions they've always buried (never too far) beneath the surface... so much as push to the breaking point ...Check out the post-apocalyptic landscape of Subsidiary, the anthemic manifesto We Are Soldiers in the Army of Love, or the unhinged ranting of Heart Attack: all perfect for slam-dancing on a minefield (our current pop moment?). Fans of minimalist polytonal disco will surely appreciate the indescribable No Name. And if multiple time signatures are your bag: the song Connection has what you need. That's Entertainment devours/deconstructs the Hollywood standard's psychotic cliches, while winking at the Gang of Four (see Entertainment) and the gang of four (Madame Mao Tse Tung et al.).But it's the tune Ecstasy--whose Boogaloo inflected groove recalls Ribot's earlier work with the Cubanos Postizos-- that states the band's ethic in starkest terms: I don't want you to give me nothing...unless you give me...ecstasy. After 18 years of collective life on the road/in this world...it seems that's the only currency Ceramic Dog still accepts. And on Connection, they gamble with/for it like there's no tomorrow.