*****
I can lose myself in POST NO BILLS. Music beyond categories, beyond impro-composition, beyond genre labels. Opaque sound spaces (Strange Attractor) and highly complex composition concepts (Ask Sirius); idiosyncratic, funky rhythms (Quast) and exquisite guitar sounds (Wellenmacher); solemn chamber music somewhere between Claude Debussy and Henry Threadgill (Dalk); a clarinet cantilena dissolves into sounds of a transistor radio (Brazzaville) and maestro Morton Feldman sends greetings from afar (Pool Movement). All this is punctuated with interludes full of subtle humor, collages, sound fragments and, by way of an intro, a quirky duel between flute and muted tuba (Blues for RMQ). Once you have taken this hint of a hint of the blues, you’ve understood everything or nothing. The quirkiness and versatility of POST NO BILLS is inherent in the unconventional instrumental line-up: The Tuba (Lu Huebsch) takes over in the bass function from the cello (Sebastian Gramss) , which then, along with guitar (Frank Wingold) and percussion, unfurls a whirring sound carpet over which the clarinet (Ole Schmidt) and flute (Chris Weinheimer) combine in a warm, wind-instrument sound, which is then rounded off with soft tuba tones and a few strokes of the cello, and so on and so forth... In short: the acoustic fantasy of the six young musicians knows no bounds. POST NO BILLS have put out a bewilderingly cheeky debut CD, engaging from the first minute to the last. The surprising thing is: All the poly-stylistics and quirkiness aside, the sextet also radiates a sense of mastery, unity and maturity (!!) that I have seldom found in German groups. Is this the music of Generation X?!? Listen and decide for yourself!
Martin Pfleiderer Jazzthetik 02/1996