Hazmat Modine

"Bahamut"; Barbès Records

3½ out of 4 stars

Hazmat Modine totes harmonicas and tubas and comes honking and whomping as if out of some enchanted back-alley pawnshop where all the musical relics of Americana have come to rest. The New York ensemble employs a motley amalgam of low-register saxophones, trumpet, lute guitar, steel guitar, cimbalom, claviola, and zamponia (heck, one song even includes a bull's scrotum and sheep's knee bones as an instrument). The Tuvan throat singers of Huun-Huur-Tu add ambiance on three tracks. With all this and more, the group strikes up a seemingly old-fashioned style that you want to call blues or bluegrass, vaudeville or marching band, dixieland or ragtime, klezmer or country. But the music fits no category; it just wails. The brass and blue notes interchange with the growls, yelps and mean falsetto of lead singer Wade Schuman to create a wholly original noise.

- RIYL: Muddy Waters; Toots Thielemans; Django Reinhardt

-- Jeff Gifford, Reno Gazette-Journal