In the past I’ve reviewed work that found Philip Gayle collaborating with others such as "BERP," which was a collaboration with Ben Lind, Ernesto Diaz-Infante, and Barbara Rose Lange, but I believe this is the first thing I’ve reviewed from Gayle solo. The label states that "Philip Gayle’s 'reject. defect.' is his 10th solo album and last release before becoming an American expatriate and relocating to Japan. On these 11-tracks Gayle, again expands on his own personal free improv orbit of acoustic guitars, mandolins, waterphone and who-the-hell-knows what else. A massive wallop of sound." Sounds like a good time, so let's get into it.
There’s an old joke about free jazz music that states that the way to do it is to simply throw all of your instruments down the stairs and record that. Philip Gayle has, in this disc, assembled a whole host of people to join into the cacophony and from the very start, we have a whole lot of chaos. This can be expected when the notes say that Philip Gayle plays guitars, mandolins, water phone, and other things. But it’s not all complete chaos on "Gowanus Spittoon, Part 1," "Gowanus Spittoon, Part 2," and "Third Doctor Miracle Box" we have stories of sorts with Shelly Hirsch. "Gowanus Spittoon, Part 1" is kind of like strange poetry, where on Part 2 we have a tale that revolves around the connection between belts and borscht. "Third Doctor Miracle Box" gives us a story about Brylcreem and the swimmer Esther Williams. It’s difficult to find a thread throughout because it’s all stream of consciousness, which works well with the music itself. But this is not all completely in your face cacaphony. The last three tracks are actually kind of peaceful. At almost 12 minutes, "Gotham Spleen" is the longest disc on the track and has a kind of spacey ambience to it that is almost mournful. "Müßiggang" has a minimal feel to it and at the conclusion we keep this feeling going with the brief track "Le Mal Aimé."
This is not going to be everybody’s cup of tea, and I’m certain that Gayle understands this. On the other hand, there are times where you just want to hear a whole lot of racket and this disc would certainly scratch that itch. Gayle brings in a whole lot of other guests including Lauren Connors on guitar, Michael Evans on percussion, Emilie-Anne Gendron on violin, Stephanie Griffin on viola, Charles Waters on bass clarinet, and the aforementioned Shelley Hirsch on voice. Overall, this was a fun ride and would certainly appeal to fans of improvisational music. This album weighs in at around 70 minutes.