Connection

by Marc Ribot, Marc Ribot's Ceramic Dog

Overview

There's a manic intensity about Marc Ribot's Ceramic Dog on the trio's fifth album, 2023's Connection. It's an angry, end-of-your-rope kind of vibe Ribot and his bandmates, bassist Shahzad Ismaily and drummer Ches Smith, have been cultivating since their 2008 debut, Party Intellectuals, and one that took on a pugilistic urgency after the 2016 U.S. presidential election on 2017's YRU Still Here? Following that record, at the height of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, the band recorded Hope, an album whose varied sonic and stylistic textures seemed to speak to their desire for both human and creative connectivity in a locked-down world. With its somewhat ironic title, Connection feels like a reaction to that time, fueled by a realization that things were just going to get worse before they ever got better. Here, Ribot and Ceramic Dog push their vitriol about the state of the world to new heights, crafting an album that balances a sustained punk dread with moments of primal, yawping rage. The record opens with the title track, a slow-burning rumination on neurotic self-isolation that has the feeling of an argument where someone calls you out for never truly living happily in the moment, declaring, "you live your life like a spy 'bout to miss your connection." That the song also sounds something like Lou Reed backed by the Stooges speaks to the raw, garage-rock atmosphere Ceramic Dog capture throughout much of the album. Equally potent is "Soldiers in the Army of Love," a spiraling, Sonic Youth-esque anthem that literally cribs the "We hold these truths to be self-evident" line from the Declaration of Independence and turns it into a rallying cry against fascism and bigotry. There are also gorgeously evocative instrumental tracks like "Swan," where tenor saxophonist James Brandon Lewis wails against the tidal wave of Ribot's distorted guitar like John Coltrane sitting in with My Bloody Valentine. But where these tracks feel like reasoned protest songs, the histrionic "Heart Attack" is unfiltered idiot rage. Rapping with stentorian fury over a groove that sounds like a monkey beating on a garbage can while a police siren wails, Ribot free-associates rhymed nonsense words, occasionally quoting other pop songs and dropping in bits of Italian like some kind of Pentecostal evangelical preacher having a stroke. The track is Dada, pure id, like Allen Ginsberg ranting against heart attacks while having an actual heart attack. The less sense the song makes, the more you feel like Ribot and Ceramic Dog are tapping into a kind of collective exasperation with the world, the failure of the human body, and the way truth seems to evade us. ~ Matt Collar

Product Details

Release Date:	07/14/2023
Label:	Knockwurst / Yellowbird
UPC:	0767522784015
Rank:	36136

Album Credits

Performance Credits

Marc Ribot   Primary Artist
Marc Ribot's Ceramic Dog   Primary Artist