Cicada

by Hazmat Modine

Overview

Hazmat Modine's first album, 2006's Bahamut, earned a placing in the Billboard blues chart. Five years later, the band's second, Cicada, might be more appropriately slotted in the magazine's traditional jazz chart. Truthfully, however, Hazmat Modine present an eclectic mixture of roots styles that is nearly beyond category. Bandleader Wade Schuman sings in an expressive adenoidal tenor and fronts a group dominated by both familiar and less frequently employed horns (Joe Daley plays sousaphone and tuba) in what might be called a "Ry Cooder meets the Dirty Dozen Brass Band" manner. But that's only the core of the sound, which also includes other unusual instruments and found sounds. The instrumental "In Two Years," for example, combines a haunting trumpet refrain, odd percussion, and the sounds of fireworks. Schuman can turn to traditional blues, as he does on "Buddy," which has a "St. James Infirmary" feel to it, and to conventional old-school R&B, on "I've Been Lonely for So Long." But even on such tracks, he changes things up, letting the horns weave in and out as he sings in a mannered, slightly tongue-in-cheek style, like Tom Waits in a higher key. The danger with such self-consciously mixed-up revivalist music is of course that it can come off as something of a joke, but Schuman and company are too accomplished as players for that; they are having a lot of fun, not just being funny. No wonder they have attracted prominent guests like Natalie Merchant, who blends into the group vocals on "Child of a Blind Man," and the Kronos Quartet, who make of the closing track, "Dead Crow," a hybrid of country hoedown and contemporary chamber music. ~ William Ruhlmann

Product Details

Release Date:	05/17/2011
Label:	BARBES
UPC:	0881626939222

Tracks

1. Mocking Bird
2. Child of a Blind Man
3. Two Forty Seven
4. Cicada
5. Buddy
6. In Two Years
7. I've Been Lonely for So Long
8. The Tide
9. Ebb Tide
10. Walking Stick
11. So Glad
12. Cotonou Stomp
13. Dead Crow

Album Credits

Performance Credits

Hazmat Modine   Primary Artist,Vocals
Richard Livingston Huntley   Talking Drum,Gong,Drums,Log Drums
Joseph Daley   Tuba,Sousaphone
Alexander Fedoriouk   Cimbalom
John Sherba   Violin
Jeffrey Zeigler   Cello
Steve Elson   Piccolo,Clarinet,Sax (Tenor),Sax (Soprano),Sax (Baritone),Contra-Alto Clarinet
Reut Regev   Trombone
Kronos Quartet   Featured Artist
Catherine Russell   Vocals
Bill Barrett   Vocals,Chromatic Harmonica
Martial Ahouandjinou   Vocals,Trombone
Wade Schuman   Handclapping,Guitar,Vocals
James Vodounnon   Vocals,Sousaphone
Pete Smith   Guitar,Vocals
Erik Della Penna   Guitar,Vocals,Handclapping
Alexis Bloom   Vocals
Magloire Ahouandjinou   Vocals,Trumpet
Crespin Kpitiki   Vocals,Percussion
Michael Gomez   Guitar,Shamisen,Balalaika,Lap Steel Guitar,Guitar (Resonator),Electric Mando Cello
Michael Farkas   Vocals,Handclapping
Pam Fleming   Trumpet
Eric Yovogan   Vocals,Trumpet
Benoit Avihoue   Vocals,Percussion
Lucien Gbaguidi   Vocals,Saxophone
Hank Dutt   Viola
Elaine Caswell   Vocals
Gangbe Brass Band   Featured Artist
David Harrington   Violin
Scott Lehrer   Vocals
Athanase Dehoumon   Vocals,Flugelhorn
Natalie Merchant   Vocals,Featured Artist

Technical Credits

Robert Palumbo   Photography
Roland Boeffgen   Engineer
Uli Balass   Photography
Sulene Fleming   Composer
Posie Knight   Composer
Bill Barrett   Composer
Steve Elson   Arranger,Composer
Alex Venguer   Engineer
Jerry Weaver   Composer
David Schuman   Arranger,Composer
Wade Schuman   Producer,Paintings,Design,Arranger,Composer
Rick Lieder   Photography
Erik Della Penna   Composer
J. Daley   Composer
Michael Gomez   Composer
Willie Samuels   Assistant Engineer
Carlos Mendes Pereira   Photography
Anya Rozhdestvenskaya   Design
M. Gomez   Composer
Eric Yovogan   Composer
Jean-Pierre Roy   Design,Images
Mikael Djossou   Engineer
Scott Fraser   Engineer
Pamela Fleming   Composer
Paul Antonell   Engineer
Irving Berlin   Composer
Jacob Garchik   Arranger,String Arrangements
Frederick Knight   Composer
Sal Mormando   Engineer
Louis Jordan   Composer
Scott Lehrer   Mixing,Engineer,Producer
Scott Hull   Mastering