Melt Yourself Down rises from the ashes of Acoustic Ladyland, an incendiary ensemble led by British saxophonist Pete Wareham that played free-improv jazz as if it were hard-charging rock music. Parting ways with drummer Seb Rochford-- with whom he continues to play in Polar Bear-- Wareham brings along bassist Ruth Goller for this frenetic dance-music project, whose fast, fleet lines have more to do with world pop and funk, particularly African, than jazz, recalling a globalized !!!. Rounded out by tenor saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings, vocalist Kushal Gaya of art-funk terrors Zun Zun Egui, and dual percussionists Tom Skinner and Satin Singh, Melt Yourself Down's debut is direct and infectious, jostling with harmonic and rhythmic allusions to Nubia, the Middle East, Latin America. If this makes the album sound dizzyingly diverse, that's half-right.
Melt Yourself Down is definitely dizzying; a whirling dervish that only relents for a couple mellower numbers tucked away at the end, where Gaya sings passionately rather than scatter-bombing panicky chants and hiccups in a mix of French Creole, English, and gibberish. "Free Walk" is especially notable for its intricate finger-work on the drums, so richly textured that it's more of a sensation than a sound in the ears. But generally, the different world music strains to adhere to a similar plan of attack. Apt for a record named after an obscure import by James White & the Blacks, most songs are driven by peppered, serpentine sax motifs that double each other, slither off on maniacal flights, and rejoin in unison. They're buoyed by melodically burbling hand percussion and ballasted by compactly looping bass lines. The careening music is tightly played; a precision offset by the primitive electronic palette of producer Leafcutter John, who adds filter snaps, blurts of synthesizer, and dubby echoes.
Though repetitive, the record is consistently engaging, with plenty of distinct highlights. The saxes on "Fix My Life" alternate between bristling junkyard riffs and a celebratory unison chorus so redolent of '80s pop radio you almost expect to hear Whitney Houston or Lionel Richie start singing. On the percolating "Release!", the notched line of Goller's bass holds together a shuddering web of sub-rhythms in the scribbling horns and electronics. It's about halfway through, circa "We are Enough", when it starts to feel as if we’ve already heard everything Melt Yourself Down has to offer, though they rally for a varied three-song finish culminating in "Camel", a big-footed stomp that trades lunging speed for humped mass. The music is optimal for a live setting, where Gaya is liable to fling himself into the audience, spinning like a top. But the record's narrow straits course with such ebullient energy that it's easy to get swept up in the fun these players are clearly having.
