Hazmat Modine

Bahamut

Barbès Records

If you must slap a label on Hazmat Modine, bandleader Wade Schuman suggests "post-modern jugband." Record stores may not have a category for such, but that’s all part of what makes this band's music jump.

That the ensemble is based from New York comes as little surprise, proving the city "like Paris" is one of today's capitals of world music. Blues to ragtime, Gypsy to Turkish music, their influences are eclectic with a capital "E." As Schuman explains his self-proscribed label, "The old jugbands played any instrument that they could afford or struck their fancy, and played any music that worked or entertained or moved people."

The core of Hazmat Modine consists of harmonica virtuosos Schuman and Randy Weinstein. They are backed by guitarist Pete Smith, tuba man Joseph Daly, percussionist Richard Huntley, and Pamela Fleming on a variety of horns.

The band's name pays homage, in a strange way, to the predominance of wind instruments. "Hazmat" of course comes from the "hazard materials" warning labels you see too often in the modern world. "Modine" is appropriated from the brand of forced-air space heaters that predominate in New York City lofts. Says Schuman, ""Hazardous hot air" is good for a band with a lot of wind-powered instruments... plus, let's be honest... heck, it sounds cool!"

The band's debut CD is nothing if not cool, perhaps hazardously so. Hazmat Modine boasts an exotic mix of musical instruments, like a United Nations conference committee on sonic inventiveness and dazzling tones. There are guitars of many ethnicities from resonators to lap steels, Hawaiians, lutes, and an electric banjitar; cymbalon, claviola, and zamponia; and holding up the bottom end of the tonalities, bass sax, bass marimba, and that glorious, honking tuba.

The fifteen tracks here run the gamut as well. The kickoff, "Yesterday Morning," is like a New Orleans funeral march to a reggae hop. The Mississippi Delta blues-influenced "It Calls Me" is counterpointed by Huun-Huur-Tu's Tuvan throat singing. And the title tune, "Bahamut," is part mythology, part Caribbean beat, all pure funky.

As Schuman explains, "I don't try and make any sort of intellectual or strategic mixture. I just love sounds and textures, and instruments. Every time I hear something I like I think, "I want that! I want it now, and I want to put it in my music!"" - MD