A new Lp of wimp-killing free jazz from the mighty Full Blast ensemble headed up by legendary reedsman Peter Brotzmann. The last album from Full Blast was a punishing assault of Ayler-influenced skronk and speed-jazz aggression tempered by some phenomenal emotive playing from the group; here, the band is joined by guest guitarist Keiji Haino from Fushitsusha for a live performance that was captured in Berlin in 2008 and documented here on this high quality vinyl only release. Once again, these players deliver nuke-strength improvised jazz that's a godsend for us fans who long for the days of Last Exit. The group includes the crack rhythm section of Marino Pliakas on electric bass and Michael Wertm�ller on drums, and Peter Evans (trumpet) and Mars Williams (reeds) join in for the performance. A worthy follow up/companion to Black Hole for sure, and allows us to witness Full Blast journeying into the realm of heavy psychnoise.

Crumbling Brain's a-side starts with the thrashing aggro jazz eruption of the title track which boils over for nearly seven minutes before the group shifts into the ten minute piece "Battle Of Visions", where an extended sax solo is delivered in staccato bursts as the band winds into a tumultuous percussive workout and smoke-clouds of scorched electric feedback. This is followed by "Have Your Eyes", showcasing frantic skittering bass and cymbal work, and rapid fire sax scuttling around at top speed, peaking out into a firey eruption at the end.

The b-side begins with "Pull Up!Pull Up!Terrain!Terrain!", a smoking furnace of heavily distorted freeform guitar blurt and bone-rattling feedback clawing and crawling over pounding polyrhythmic drumming and thunderous low end bass. It lurches into some noisy free-thrash and mangled guitar driven on by Wertmuller's pummeling, almost metallic double-bass drumming, and Haino whips out some crazed shredding over the violent car crash blowout at the end. "Elegance Of Darkness" combines throat singing with the muffled sound of breath being pulled and scraped through the body of the sax, creating this seriously creepy wheezing sound, and then becomes a kind of death rattle as screeching horns flutter in panic. The album closes with the lengthy jam "Deathbop", Wertmuller whipping up another cyclone of percussive energy and speed, a foundation for Haino's skronky guitar.

A smoldering, vicious slab of hardcore improv jazz. Comes in a high quality tip-on pasteboard jacket, and pressed on 180 gram vinyl.