[On Deus Ex Machina,] there's a bunch of bass guitar playing that has an attack similar to Jaco Pastorius (the hard pull + fretboard gliss thing); percussion drifts in & out, sometimes playing "together" in some fun polyrhythmic grooves, sometimes just suspended "bonks" with multiple echoes like an early Jon Hassell record; floating keyboard (fairly organ-y) and harp-like sounds that kinda remind me of Alice C & Santana's Illuminations; sound effects outta nowhere (in the liner notes he talks about it as a "soundtrack"; and vocal spoken-word tracks at the limit of perceptibility, very modulated voices, in Italian & I think French (anyone who's been thru the tunnel between terminals at O'Hare can probably imagine these quite precisely). Really pleasant damn thing to have on late at night, lack of "live" percussionists notwithstanding. [JF]

New Maps of Hell was once compared to Agharta, but this seems to be based entirely on the extrapolation of only certain elements of the latter; that is, what's left when the funk is removed. It's not a fair comparison-- and probably not Schutze's intention anyway-- as New Maps, as well as The Rapture of Metals (composed and performed entirely by PS, it maybe doesn't reach into the same soundstreams as the other "Phantom City"-oriented albums), and Site Anubis better align themselves with Jon Hassell's documentaries of the Fourth World. But Shiva Recoil gets the biggest nod for its density, its vastly different mix of instrumentation and its deemphasizing of the reconstruction concept. Dunno whether I'd agree with The Wire's descriptor as "the starting pistol for the electrojazz revival," but it does take a healthy stab at the continuation of European electric jazz. (See George Russell's Electronic Sonatas, with its combination of electronic soundscapes and free playing, as an antecedent.) Shiva is a live document, with the two extended improvs guided by a pre-composed tape that was only previously familiar to Schutze and drummer, Dirk Wachtelaer. It's dense and textural with some fairly crushing moments: Toshinori Kondo's echoed trumpet that triggers then haunts "Black Data I" is particularly head-tilting. [DW]

Site Anubis and Shiva Recoil are way fantastic improv-fusion-tronic works...highly recommended!!!!!
[harold]