For those unaware, originally from Sacramento, California, Ches Smith is a drummer, percussionist, and composer based in New York.

His most recent projects include the widely acclaimed 2021 album Path of Seven Colors by his ensemble We All Break, which merged Haitian Vodou music with progressive compositional and improvisational approaches, garnering Smith the top spot on The Guardian’s Best Jazz Albums of the Year list and a #7 ranking on the 2021 Arts Fuse critics’ poll; and Interpret It Well, an exploratory outing teaming guitar master Bill Frisell and Smith’s trio with pianist Craig Taborn and violist Mat Maneri.

He has also collaborated with a host of artists on many scenes since the early 2000s, including Marc Ribot, Tim Berne, John Zorn, Darius Jones, David Torn, Nels Cline, Mary Halvorson, Terry Riley, Kris Davis, Dave Holland, Secret Chiefs 3, Good for Cows, and Mr. Bungle, among others.

Smith’s new album, Laugh Ash, is perhaps his most startling and remarkable to date, a breathtakingly original set of music whose touchstones are myriad but ultimately meaningless in the face of an inventive and stunningly unfamiliar expression.

Due out February 2nd, 2024 via Pyroclastic Records, the album makes thrilling use of disorientation and juxtaposition: starkly beautiful chamber melodies coexist with synthetic rhythms, explosive bursts of improvisation with elusive song forms, austere ambience with thundering complexity.

Eclectic, undoubtedly, but in a paradoxical way that is defiantly cohesive while never losing sight of the fact that none of it should be.

1. Minimalism
2. Remote Convivial
3. Sweatered Webs (Hey Mom)
4. Shaken, Stirred Silence
5. The Most Fucked
6. Winter Sprung
7. Disco Inferred
8. Unyielding Daydream Welding
9. Exit Shivers

With all the music composed and arranged by Ches Smith himself, this rather diligently-sculpted new recording opens on the propulsive Minimalism and the swirling synth-driven percussional work of Remote Convivial and they are followed by the Eastern-imbibed Sweatered Webs (Hey Mom) and the jaunty Shaken, Stirred Silence.

Along next are the static melodies and rhythms that come together to make up The Most Fucked and in deep contrast, the wind chime ambiance of Winter Sprung, and they are in turn backed by the jagged electronic beats and pulses of Disco Inferred, the album rounding out on the stoically-chiming, veritably cinematic Unyielding Daydream Welding, coming to a close on the aptly-titled Exit Shivers.

Other Musicians:
Shara Lunon - voice and vocal processing
Anna Webber - flute
Oscar Noriega - clarinets
James Brandon Lewis - tenor saxophone
Nate Wooley - trumpet
Jennifer Choi - violin
Kyle Armbrust - viola
Michael Nicolas - cello
Shahzad Ismaily - bass and keyboards
Ches Smith - electronics, programming, vibes, drums, tubular bells, glockenspiel, timpani, tam tam, metal percussion

Official Purchase Link