From NPR:
There are no people named Claudia, or women who could be named Claudia, in the Claudia Quintet. On its new album, Royal Toast, it’s not even a quintet. There is, however, a drummer and composer named John Hollenbeck. He’s got a knack for curious names, and more importantly, he writes really intriguing music.
His music for the Claudia Quintet comes from a jazz foundation, and it’s played by musicians fluent in jazz. But there’s a lot of other stuff mixed in there, too. There are cries of free improvisation and interlocking layers of minimalism, and there’s the complexity and clean precision of math-/post-/prog-rock. (The tidy joys of Spoon and Deerhoof meet the throbbing impulses of Battles and Tortoise, maybe.) It’s played by the quirky combination of clarinet or tenor sax, vibraphone, accordion, bass and drums, with the addition of piano on this record. And it rocks.
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