THE ELECTRIC BIBLE | CHAPTER 046

Some white guys foolishly tried to play jazz; others, like German Peter Brötzmann, simply decided to destroy all music in a blitzkrieg. The first credible European response to American free jazz, Machine Gun remains the definitive expression of the Brötzmann Octet, a monstrous ensemble – three saxes, two drummers, two bassists, and piano – designed to emanate annihilating constructs of sound. Still rooted in jazz methodology but pointing ahead to the explosive free noise which would blast out of Tokyo just two years later, Machine Gun firmly aligns Brötzmann’s octet with the MC5 in the ranks of 1968’s most deadly white sonic assassins.