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.
