I'd forgotten that the date of this recording actually precedes their self-titled debut album on Enemy by four days. I prefer the latter (and consider it one of the great releases from the 80s), but 'Koln' is the decided runner-up, imho.

I have all the Last Exit CDs and would put this one third, behind the s/t debut and Cassette Recordings '87 (the lengthy opening track on that one, "Line Of Fire," tears my head off every time). I didn't like the studio album Iron Path much the first few times I heard it - it seemed overly restrained and Laswell-ized. But I recently put it into an "art-metal" iPod playlist, and surrounded by Atheist and Cynic and the Flying Luttenbachers and Burzum and whatnot, it sounds pretty damn good. My least favorite of their discs is The Noise Of Trouble - Live In Tokyo. The crucial question I have for Derek, though, is: has Koln been remastered in any substantial way? I have the old ITM edition, but if this one sounds death-metal loud I might have to pick it up.

My punchline above was made with only memories of the other Last Exit albums as means of direct comparison. They're all sitting at the bottom of an unmarked box in my closet & based on the assertions made by Brian & Phil, it looks like I need to excavate them ASAP. Still have Köln poised tentatively at the top of the pyramid though.

Phil, there's no mention of remastering on the UMS edition, but the sound is sharp & loud to my ears w/ all the instruments succinctly separated & discernable even in the woolliest sections (at least on the cans I use for general listening). I'll give a shout out to Kurt over at Atavistic & get the straight dope.

I'd love to hear this one...although one that dosen't get talked about that much is HEAD FIRST INTO THE FLAMES, I really love that album..Shannon is ferocious on that, incredible stuff, would have loved to have seen em...

Just heard word from Kurt. No remastering on the UMS edition.

Will, I love "Headfirst" too. In fact, it's the only Last Exit album I've kept over the years.

same here, Headfirst is the only one I have, much better than anything else I've heard from them. I think DMG has plans to reissue this at some point on an in-house label they're starting? there are details on their site...

FWIW, several people I've heard opinions from on this topic in the past rank Iron Path above all. I agree with Phil that The Noise of Trouble is the weakest. It's the first I got way back in high school and I could just never get into it very much. The noise-skronk thing has never really been my bag anyway. I've never heard Köln myself, but I know and moderately like the others. In a way, though, I'm really turned off to the whole hard-drinking, ear-destroying, nihilistic aesthetic Last Exit projected. I'd rather just play other albums by the members at this point, especially Sharrock; there's so many great ones to choose from. FWIW, I also don't really care for The Stooges.

Just remembered that funny quote from Brötzmann in the Corbett book about how Laswell was not a very good bass player! Always good for a chuckle (but I have no bones with Laswell and Killing Time is easily an all-time top 50 record for me and a sacred holy grail if there ever was one...).

[Phil] ...surrounded by Atheist and Cynic and the Flying Luttenbachers and Burzum and whatnot...

[Mike] Four bands I really love, especially the first two!! I heard about the art-metal article in some newspaper, but I haven't seen it yet. It would be great to have Phil or Jason or someone break some quickie umambitious overview shit out for Bags and get the names dropping all in one convenient and properly labelled location...

who issued the LP to begin with?

ITM, wasn't it? Don't have the vinyl, only a cassette copy. Phil?

Yeah, the original's on ITM. (What was that label's deal, anyway? The only two CDs I own - the only two CDs I've ever heard of - that they put out were Köln and No Material, the Brötzmann/Sharrock/Ginger Baker thing.)

Nice Borbeto piece in Wire, Phil. (Sorry to hijack everyone's thread to send personal messages) Would love to get hold of Allentown.. they'll be here in Paris in ten days - I'll ask Don.

Funny that Unheard Music appears to be reissuing things already on CD, then?

Wonder what would've happened if they'd stuck to issuing radio broadcasts...

It seems to me that Iron Path has been given short shrift because it flew in the face of preconceived notions of what Last Exit "should" sound like. I think it's a great album & functions as a brilliant flipside to any of the live releases, "Headfirst" being my favorite. The one correlative to this short-shrifing of Iron in another genre would be the great movie Neighbors, which today still gets chuckleheaded negative reviews because folks could never get over the role reversal of Belushi & Aykroyd.

I just read a review of this on OFN that I thought more than a bit odd. It inexplicably casts Last Exist as a "No-Wave" band, and the following is outright absurd:

[Troy Collins, OFN] Last Exit laid the foundation for today’s noise improv scene, from John Zorn’s Naked City and Painkiller projects in the 1990s to current rock cross-over acts like Fantomas, the Ruins, and Melt-Banana. Without this foursome there would be no benchmark to measure one’s success (or intensity) against.

[Mike] Okay, similarities with Painkiller are obvious, but Naked City? I can only note that the bulk of Naked City's work was rehearsed, not improvised, and hardly involved "noise". From where to where the "cross-over" of Fantomas, Ruins, and Melt-Banana is happening, I can only imagine, but a connection between these three groups and "noise improv" is tenuous at best. Fantomas and Melt-Banana very rarely use improvisation and only use noise in a secondary, non-critical way. Although it's not rare for the Ruins to improvise, their primary aesthetic is hyper-rehearsal-intensive non-noisy non-improv. Besides the fact that the Ruins' first release was in 1986, coincidentally the year of the first Last Exit release, and that the Ruins have been vastly more prolific (30+ releases) and influential than Last Exit, I seriously doubt that any of these bands owe any debt whatsoever to Last Exit historically or aesthetically. I also doubt that to whatever extent a "noise improv scene" exists it has any foundations in Last Exit's work. Finally, I'm not sure what Last Exit could possibly be considered a benchmark for beyond loud, high-energy blends of free jazz and free rock. Earlier this year I listened to a rather fantastic new CD by Ultralyd (Load Records) that I could see Last Exit as an antecedent for, and I suspect that other bands could be cited, but why on earth those three non-improv non-noise bands were cited is a mystery to me.

Very inaccurate aesthetic and historical contextualization.

Yes, sounds like he's barking up the wrong tree there for sure. Having seen Naked City play several times, I can say for sure they were VERY structured: scores and music stands on stage (check the scores in the recent Tzadik box set).
I wonder what Phil thinks of the OFN review, as someone who digs Last Exit lover but isn't a Zorn fan :)

Never mind the historical inaccuracies; it's just bad writing. Some of the worst writing I've read outside of old metal fanzines, in fact. Does OFN pay its contributors? If they do, Collins should give his "editor" a refund.

Nakled City were indeed highly structured, there was no ethos or anything like free jazz in there. In fact last year in brief interview Zorn has said to us that Naked City was all about him the composer. Like Zorn has said in the past there was high influence of harcore music (and rapid changes of tempo in it) at least in the songs w Yamatsuka Eye. In fact Zorn has often credited New York- london- Tokyo hardcore triangle and bands like DRI, Napalm Death, Carcass, Melvins, Godflesh, Scorn, etc ... on the records (so a bit of metal, grindcore, etc .. in there as well) and he played on records by GOD, OLD, Scorn, Ruins, etc ...

In response to Phil's comment above, I was just wondering how much actual editing gets done on these mags. For the record, very little gets past me unedited onto Paris Transatlantic, but I know that's not the case with Stylus (who recently ran a review I refused myself) and it certainly didn't use to be the case with Signal To Noise, prompting a famous (unedited) rant from Dr Chadbourne a few years back. And I often send my own scribbles to other writers for a second opinion. Not to mention a spell check. So I'm surprised to see such a piece at OFN. Meanwhile, as my thinly disguised attempts to provoke Phil into a pro /anti Zorn battle have fallen on deaf ears (probably just as well, given the amount of work I've got on my plate here), I'll just go back and give Leng T'che a quick blast before dinner:)

Truthfully Dan, Paris Transatlantic is the ONLY magazine (print or web) that I've contributed to that's been "edited", in the full (good) sense of the word. I've had experiences with two mags that "edit" (i.e. mangle) things, much to my dismay, but the vast majority of publications just throw the stuff into print without even a spellcheck.

I remember seeing Last Exit at the Walker Art Center back in 1983? I recall it being one Hell of a self indulgent Train wreck...One of the few shows I've walked out on due to Musical Jake off & sheer pain level and I've been to some loud ones i.e. Melvins. I do like Sonny Sharrock, Ron Jackson in other settings . That Walker gig did leave an odd taste in my mouth but maybe thats my taste buds.

In Brötzmann's world Laswell is not a fantastic bass player, not when we are talking about Kowald, William Parker, Johnny Dyani, Buschi Niebergall, Harry Miller, Fred Hopkins, etc.
Still as far as improvised music/free jazz, Laswell is one of two or three other to make profound and definitive statement's on bass guitar. I am really into both last exit and painkiller lately. As many horrible projects as Laswell has had his fingers in it would be nice to be able to write him off, but he is just so great sometimes.
The duo with Brötz, "Lowlife" is a good one as is his work in Massacre. Melvin Gibbs and Peter Fris Nielson also do some interesting things with bass guitar in improvised music.

I'm very much looking forward to seeing Purple Trap (Keiji Haino - guitar, Laswell - bass, Rashied Ali - drums) in what I think is their live debut, at Zorn's new ultra-ascetic venue The Stone on 12/14.

also coincidentally the trio that ended my Haino fanboy days, what an awful double disc that is.

Jon, you must mean that double disc on Tzadik, Decided...! That's one of the few Haino releases I actually like! (That and the solo hurdy-gurdy stuff are the only Haino I can really get excited about.) In fact, I think it's an amazing set of music and a stellar representation of all three musicians! I seriously have a hard time even sitting through most Haino discs just once, but his falsetto vocals and gentle and dreamy guitar on there is just magical. I also find the lyrics truly spine-tingling, a kind of impossibly time-stretched poetry. For me it's a really emotionally penetrating album. And Ali has that timeless open pulse drumkit feeling on there, which is as much about the sheer timbres of cymbals and drums as anything else.

I totally agree with Damon above about Laswell. Yeah, we all know he's the other big icon of "downtown" inconsistency alongside Elliott Sharp—lots of mediocre filler and not a safe bet in general—but the talent is there and every once in a while it gets used. Besides Killing Time (which Damon mentioned), an indisputable holy grail of the 20th century and an album of nearly religious proportions to me personally, I think he has an uniquely elastic sound on the Purple Trap that plays an equally pivotal role as the other two/three instruments, and he manages to avoid the usual cliches of bass guitar. But as a third example of truly great Laswell, I'll cite Arcana Arc of the Testimony, a radically original record that seems perfect to me in every way and reaches transcendental heights that owe a lot to both the bass guitar and production of Laswell. So, yeah, I'm not much of a Laswell fan to be honest, but if you just look at his best moments he's way ahead of most musicians.

By the way, I think Damon raises an intriguing point about how rare great improv bass guitarists are in comparison to great bass fiddlers (of which there are oodles, certainly including Damon himself!). When I think about great bass guitarists (I guess my favorites would have to be Ferdinand Richard and Chris Squire), they're not improvisors! In my listening experience, by far the most profound and definitively innovative improv bass guitarist is Massimo "Zu" Pupillo. That guy is in a category of his own. Check out the new Zu disc with Mats Gustafsson as guest for prime evidence. That guys just kills me.

Morgan Guberman also improvises well on electric bass, particularly on tour (touring with a contrabass just isn't easy).

I prefer him on the big axe though, and think his "Torpor" cd has some amazing stuff on it.

I'm sure Djll knows more about his work than I do.

I'm not a big fan of the Purple Trap release, either - I think Laswell's tone is entirely wrong for the material. Had he gone with the thick sound he had on the Last Exit discs, it would have been a tremendous record, but he went for a fat, dubby sound instead, and turned the whole thing flaccid in too many parts. Haino and Ali are both great, though. I'm hoping for better results at the gig.

that record was the first time I ever thought Haino sounded wanky, it had never even crossed my mind before then. totally burst my bubble, haven't listened to him much since then.

Yeah, ask Djll about Gubberman, he loves to write about his roommates and buddies, whether or not they actually practice or play well.
I much prefer Djll at the trumpet rather than the computer keyboard.
As for the OFN Last Exit review, it looked to me like the writer learned about creative music journalism from reading "New York Is Now". I am not sure if i was more surprised not to see Phil's name at the bottom, or to see him criticizing it.
I am not sure how close Naked City and Last Exit are, but I do know that I was listening to them in the same time period, and they both merge rock and creative music ideas.
As for E#, I find him way more constant than Laswell.
Although he was an early influence of mine when I was coming from punk.
He does some interesting things with E-bass as well, with his double neck and now he has a beautiful electro-acoustic guitarbass.
I played with him this summer, trio with the clarinetist Jacob Lindsay. It was sensitive, detailed, mostly acoustics trio music.
Elliott has a lot of ideas and does plenty of things, but when he just sits down with acoustic guitar it is still amazing.
I went through a really enjoyable period of listening to most of his work beforehand, I found it had continuity and integrity all the way through.
I kind of see him as the downtown Braxton, all over the place, but can just focus things solo with his instrument.

I saw Guberman and Gail Brand a few weeks ago. It was cool. My innate humor button as far as improvising vocalists go was pretty much spent after the Genetti/Wright/Mueller set in October. . .along the lines of "Ballgames and Crazy" which I probably won't listen to again.

The theatre factor often blinds my better judgment. I saw Stephan Mathieu in Chicago last night and there was this plum dreadful LCD string of different colors on a screen which just tranquilized tantamount to watching flies fuck, totally peripheral of the music. It almost took away from the wonderful 40+ minute slab of drone (which coincidentally was predicated on manipulated live AM radio captures). Where is the line between genuine live passion and a chili cook-off?

I often find more tangible emotional passion at a chili cook-off than at concerts these days. I'm clearly seeing the wrong shows. Was anyone actually elated by Thursdays Leo Smith fest in LA?

Michael, are you saying the Genetti set was humorous? I've seen her perform many times and never noticed anything remotely humorous. Also, the new album by that trio is easily the best free improv vocal music I've ever heard! And that's coming from someone who almost always loves free improv vocal music and goes out of his way to hear every possible example of it. The album is just astonishing! And very very focused, lowercase, serious, and unfunny sounding... And the trio has newer recordings that might get released too! Maybe you can clarify what you mean there. Also what is "Ballgames and Crazy"?

I know for a fact Gennetti is very serious and disciplined. She practices and studies her art very seriously, for this reason those two cannot be discussed together.
I have worked with her several times and have a cd with her, never once did I find her to be making jokes or even lacking focus.
Personally I like working with voice, many of my projects include Aurora Josephson who is also amazing.
Also, I am not sure any improvised music can compete with a good chili cook-off.

Maybe I should clarify. I enjoy and in fact look for humor when it comes to vocal improv. I find some of Minton downright hilarious. Carol was laughing a lot and having a good time reacting to her cohorts and reacting to the audience. Just seeing someone do that live for the first time was inevitably a surprise and in turn a delight. I'm not questioning her discipline or approach or focus whatsoever.

In other words. . .since I had been knocked off my seat by the inherent oddity of Genetti's craft not a few weeks earlier (add to that the fact that I don't have the chance geographically to see much live improv at all), I realized I would be hard-pressed to be as shocked/surprised at Guberman's vocals, and in fact wasn't.

So yes. . .the Genetti/Wright/Mueller set was at times quite humorous!

"Ballgames and Crazy": the Guberman/Brand Emanem from last year

you're all pretentious faggots.

when's Firecracker going to be on DVD?

"You're all pretentious faggots"
YO Patton! Pretentious maybe :)

as opposed to when you tried to lodge yourself inside that attic fan when you played on SNL?

What is ih - ih - ih - ih - ih. . .

That is a high compliment, considering the source. More than likely fake, however.