As a musician, songwriter and composer of imagination, ambition and range, Simon Hanes has a record out now that combines some of his varied passions. Tsons of Tsunami (Tzadik Records) is the name of the album and also a quintet Hanes leads that carries out his personal musical mission.
Tsons of Tsunami is this native Californian’s vehicle for indulging his love of surf music but as a member of New York’s Downtown scene, free improv flourishes here and — as the leader of the large Italian-pop Tredici Bacci — the style of Ennio Morricone scores are factored in as well. Call them a “chill-wave surf band” if you want, but they’re a bit more than that to my ears.
Nick Millevoi’s Desertion Trio is the instrumental/jazz outlaw group that comes closest to this approach but while Millevoi does it primarily with the guitar/bass/drums layout, Hanes goes for the jugular assembling a band with his guitar (baritone, at that), bass (Jesse Heasly) and drums (Jon Starks) expanded by vibes, trombone (both by Selendis Sebastian Alexander Johnson) and French horn (Kevin Newton).
This getup works better than you might think. In fact, it works great; it doesn’t even come close to sounding like some gimmicky hybrid. “This One’s for You, Old Timer” states its base intentions with a pop-friendly guitar riff and goes off with the vibraphone jamming hard right alongside the guitar. It then collapses into freeform, regroups back to the riff and this time, Newton’s French horn partakes in the blowing. And yes, that French horn sounds like it belongs there.
“Quest for Crest” (video above) would be the first choice to soundtrack for a Monty Python Western, if such a movie was ever made. “The Saga of Grettir the Strong,” inspired by a medieval Icelandic tale, sashays on a steady, drums/bass groove, striking a balance between melody and capriciousness. The dance-beckoning backbeat of “DR20” is where the trombone intricately alternates the lead lines with guitar.
“Zest for Crest” puts Hanes’ love for Link Wray and free jazz on a collision course and the crash creates sparks that challenge listeners of only one of either style to embrace the other. “A Break in the Fate Line” has heavy indie rock overtones, while “Plank” is a rubbery funk groove underneath a brash trombone competing with the French horn.
By harnessing his love for surf rock and other, disparate music forms all at once, Simon Hanes and his Tsons of Tsunami are making the case for why we should enjoy this audacious mixture of styles, too.
Simon Hanes – ‘Tsons of Tsunami’ on Amazon
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