A project-oriented bassist, Gonçalo Almeida debuts with “The Hundred Headed Women” one more amongst the several he is involved with, simply presented as Roji, the Japanese word for “dewy ground”. Being a duo with a drummer (Jörg A. Schneider), we start the listening with the idea that a rhythmic and textural approach to improvisation waits us, not very far from the one developed together by John Edwards and Mark Sanders. That mistakes vanishes very rapidly, and not only because there’s just one “song” without a guest playing a melodic instrument, either trumpeter Susana Santos Silva and baritone saxophonist Colin Webster. It happens that Almeida’s electric bass is wildly processed, functioning many times as a noise generator or, thanks to all the electronics used, as an orchestral conductor. And as if it wasn’t enough, the coordinates of the proposed music come from metal, with the attitude picked from punk To simplify, we can say that this recording sounds almost like an encounter between Bill Laswell and Mick Harris (Napalm Death), but simultaneously more trashy and more jazzy, more Public Image Limited and more Sunn 00))). We can compare Roji with the Italian band Zu, but there’s a fundamental difference: this isn’t fun. It’s amazing, in a very dark, frightening way. The movie “Antichrist” by Lars von Triers found a better soundtrack.
released July 1, 2016
ROJI /// The Hundred Headed Women
01. Inner Roji
02. 2 Sisters
03. Sounding Restraint
04. 1+1=3
05. Pacific
06. Prelude to a Broken Sax
07.The Hundred Headed Women
Gonçalo Almeida - bass and loops
Jörg A. Schneider - drums
guests:
Susana Santos Silva - trumpet // Tracks #1,#4,#7
Colin Webster - baritone sax // Tracks #3,#5,#6
Recorded at Loundry Room Hückelhoven on 24 track 2" real tape by Jörg A. Schneider
Mixed by Ralf Rock
Mastered by Guido Lucas
by Dave Foxall on A Jazz Noise Blog
ajazznoise.com/roji-the-hundred-headed-women/
"Roji is apparently Japanese for “dewy ground”. If I could make sense of that and work it into this review, I would. As it is, I’m planning on getting a 7 Questions interview from bassist Gonçalo Almeida (also to be found in Bulliphant, Spinifex, and Albatre among others) so maybe I can cajole an explanation out of him then. Anyway…
…this is Almeida’s duo project with drummer Jörg A. Schneider (Jealousy Mountain Duo, Nicoffeine) though duo is a bit of a misnomer since on all but one track (the collaborative collision that is 2 Sisters) they’re joined by either Susana Santos Silva or Colin Webster. Now, both trumpet and saxophone are often categorised as “melodic” instruments but here texture is everything and Santos Silva and Webster take turns to contribute slabs and dabs of concrete filigree, alternately gilding and hammering the hypno-rhythmic structures created by Almeida and Schneider.
Schneider’s drums dance and swerve, always propulsive, never predictable – eschewing simple rhythm-keeping for a more nuanced and three-dimensional role. Almeida’s bass is the core thread. It rumbles, it drives, and it drags you along behind by the hair. It offers a deceptively straight and steady path that is likely to dissolve into murky distortion when you least expect it. And yet, it provides the structure around which Schneider et al. create their dystopian murals. Yes, this disc often has that post-apocalyptic tension thing going on. But what elevates it above the usual noise-prov, jazzcore fare is a sense of balance, of precise authority, the feeling that it couldn’t be anything than what it is. This is a definitive statement."
By Grego Applegate Edwards ongapplegateguitar.blogspot
"The duet-plus-guests configuration of ROJI, as we hear on The Hundred Headed Woman (ShhPuma 023) makes for a compelling and joyful noise thanks to the throughly musical avant timbre and tone of electric bassist Goncalo Almeida and the fully aware timbral depth and rolling creativity of drummer Jorg A. Schneider. The addition of Susana Santos Silva on trumpet for around half the album and baritone saxophonist Colin Webster for the other half fleshes out the sound without decreasing the very large presence of Almeida's bass or the rolling thunder of Schneider's drums. In either case Silva's trumpet or Webster's baritone adds to the remarkable frenetics of ROJI without subtracting the hugeness of the duo in the least. Only one cut features the duo as duo. But we do not, or at least I do not feel anything but the rigor of electric-boosted continuity from first to last. It sounds like Goncalo is playing a five- or six-string electric much of the time, as there is the deepness of the amped-up bass tones plus sometimes a counterline played in the upper range of the instrument, with or without a slide but in any event more guitar than bass-like. In either case Goncalo gives us a distinct avant fullness that is original as it is bracing. The entire album rockets forth with great energy, noise, and timbre. It is as much psychedelic-laced rock as it is new thing and new music. And it is not just that they do this consistently but that they also do it so well. In this extraordinarily fragile and frankly disturbing age we live in ROJI transcends the instability of the present with fearless musical courage."
By Lee Rice Epstein on free Jazz Blog:
"Roji is primarily a duo with Gonçalo Almeida and drummer Jörg A. Schneider. This is not the Almeida of Lama, which is how I got to know his work. Roji’s sound is dense, layered, heavy, processed, dark, and twisted. Their debut, The Hundred Headed Women, was released over the summer, but it could just as easily have emerged during the long nights of winter. Throughout writing this review, I found it impossible to avoid organic metaphors. That’s because, for all the digital effects, there’s a lushness to Roji’s playing that evokes organic matter; it’s loamic, dense and rich. Almeida augments his bass with a great deal of processing, and Schneider’s playing sounds like it’s being filtered through a midnight fog. There’s a brassy edge to the cymbals and the drums sound like they’ve been dug up from a deep pit. Colin Webster and Susana Santos Silva guest on baritone sax and trumpet, respectively, and they blend nicely with the vibe and mood of the album. Santos Silva comes at this material halfway between her playing with Lama and her trio with Torbjörn Zetterberg and Hampus Lindwall. And Webster, well if you hadn’t guessed by now, he is a near-perfect fit for Roji. The album’s a near palindrome, with Santos Silva guesting on the first, middle, and last tracks, and Webster mostly sandwiched between (although there’s one track—the brief, driving monster “2 Sisters”—which is only Almeida and Schneider). The album opens with a long peeling back, “Inner Roji,” which gradually cranks up the intensity, Santos Silva coming in to split the track along hidden fault lines. A bit later, “Sounding Restraint” wastes almost no time, with Webster playing off Almeida’s bass and various loops and drones, while Schneider lays down a rhythm so tense and urgent my dog got audibly nervous. “Prelude to a Broken Sax” opens with Webster’s long tones paired with a thrilling run from Almeida. After about a minute, Webster’s tones become stretched and strained, and Almeida’s bass line becomes distorted and ragged. Again, Schneider provides a churning undercurrent of crisp fills and muted, clattering cymbals. The final track, the titular “The Hundred Headed Women,” opens with several minutes of exploratory rumination from Schneider and Almeida. Santos Silva seems to enter through a side door, sneaking in around the halfway point with some subtle shading. But the trio builds to a heavy finish, with Santos Silva alternately growling and piercing over Almeida and Schneider’s wild, rolling melody of-sorts. In Clean Feed’s notes online, The Hundred Headed Women is described as an alternate soundtrack for Lars von Trier’s Antichrist. It’s a cinematic work, surely, and while there’s plenty of von Trier here, the album’s also infused with loads of Lynch and doses of a darker, alternate universe Malick."
