SLAMCD206 Pinski Zoo – De​-​Icer

1993 album from leading British experimental jazz group Pinski Zoo, led by saxophonist Jan Kopinski, who mixed rock with free jazz, funk and fusion. Recorded on tour in Austria, USA and the UK between 1991-3.

Jan Kopinski: alto and tenor saxophones
Karl Bingham: electric bass
Steve Iliffe: synthesizers, samples
Steve Harris: drums

“This engaging, harmolodic gem was recorded live at three locations…Yours truly was at that great gig at The Knit where Pinski Zoo played on a double bill with Curlew and both bands were hot and very well matched…What I dig about this is that the music is both danceable and interesting to listen to sitting down.” – Bruce Lee Gallanter, Downtown Music Gallery

“This set of live performances show how exciting a band Pinski Zoo can be. Don’t be fooled by terms like ‘jazz-funk’ or ‘free-funk’. They’re pretty inadequate, as are comparisons with Prime Time. Jan Kopinski does at times echo Ornette Coleman in his saxophone playing, but there’s also some of the furious intensity of the great British alto player Mike Osborne. Anyway, on most tracks it doesn’t matter who, if anyone, Kopinski sounds like, because this is real fusion music, where all the musicians mesh to produce slabs of jagged rhythmic sound, full of supple bass, acerbic alto, inventive percussion and keyboards…Play it loud.” – Paul Donnelly, Stride

“Although their sound is clearly indebted to Ornette Coleman’s harmolodics (where each instrument plots its own path across common terrain provided by a crashing electronic beat), Nottingham’s Pinski Zoo are instantly identifiable. Typically, a hypnotically repetitive riff is established, anthemic and declamatory or infectiously jaunty, and the drums carry it throughout the piece while the saxophone screams and roars, the electric bass stutters and snarls and the synthesizer provides splashes of colour. Relentless, uncompromising and loud, this is not for the faint-hearted, but for improvisational inventiveness, textural variety and sheer gutsiness, it is difficult to match.” – Chris Parker, BBC Music Magazine

“A timely release from Britain’s much neglected Pinski Zoo, our most forceful and original band to labour under the restrictive ‘jazz’ label. Over a decade together has fused them into a wondrously original unit. Here they’re exploring a psychedelic tack, and – logically enough for a collection of live shots – you’re most impressed by the solos; Jan Kopinski’s eerie sax, Karl Bingham’s Hendrix-into-funk bass and keyboardist Steve Iliffe’s astonishing post-Zawinulisms. Pinski Zoo are good enough to make you want to burn down the disco – and evaporate all the watered-down ‘boundary crossing’ compromises that pass for modern jazz these days.” – Ben Watson, Hi-Fi News & Record Review

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