Spanish Donkey Raoul (2-CD)

Double vinyl LP pressing. The sound of Joe Morris' electric guitar, with distortion pedal set on stun and wah-wah pedal fully engaged, colliding with Jamie Saft's droning, microtonal organ and Mike Pride's thunderous free drumming approach to the kit creates a mind-numbing maelstrom on The Spanish Donkey's Raoul, the improvising trio's 2015 release. Raoul is the follow-up to their 2011 album XYX. Raoul consists of three throbbing tracks - the brutal 32-minute title track, the 22-minute "Behavioral Sink" and 16-minute Echoplex piano feature "Dragon Fly Jones" - that showcase The Spanish Donkey's remarkable group-think as well as the individual player's uncanny intuition on their respective instruments. More intensely cathartic, startlingly original and compelling than anything you've ever heard - imagine a mash-up of John Coltrane's Interstellar Space and Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music - Raoul stands as a hellacious manifesto by one of the most formidable improvising trios around today.