Matt Steckler, the leader of the Dead Cat Bounce, loves energy: the hoot and holler of Mingus’s great ensembles, the hard-blowing surrealism of Roland Kirk, the adrenalin rush of vintage rockabilly and funk, the jousting polyphony of Dixieland. Even the Marx Brothers contribute to the mix: Steckler lifts the title “I Once Vaccinated with a Phonograph Needle” straight from Duck Soup – and surely those horn-honks on “Department of Homeland Strategery” came direct from Harpo? Home Speaks to the Wandering isn’t relentlessly high-energy – there are gorgeous swelling four-sax chorales, a jaunty tune on the tin whistle, even some loungey 1960s flute jazz – but what one remembers most about it are the compulsive, seething grooves and the brawling saxophones. “Hiram Hinckler’s Shrunken Heads” barrels along like one of Sun Ra’s most bruising 1950s charts, the horns snapping phrases off so hard it gives you whiplash. “Hepcat Revival” is r&b of such gutbucket fervour it leaves the Vandermark 5’s efforts in this vein in the dust. By the time Steckler’s hollering a la “Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting,” the piece is so intense that he’s earned the right to the Mingus borrowing. He shows equal chutzpah on his satire on the Bush regime, “Department of Homeland Strategery,” which contains an audacious parody of the accelerating call-and-response sequences on The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady.

Solo honours are shared across the disc: saxophonists Charlie Kohlhase, Jared Sims, Drew Sayers and the leader himself all make strong showings, and bassist Arie Werbrouck and drummer Bill Carbone are an appropriately lean and hungry rhythm section. A special word is in order for Sims, who turns in some of the bleariest tenor work on record since the heyday of Archie Shepp. Great stuff all round: for sheer snaggletoothed excitement Home Speaks to the Wandering is hard to beat.

Nate Dorward

Cadence, June 2004