Band

"I was fortunate enough to stumble across "The Secret Code of Ethics," one of veteran composer Steve Horowitz's early albums. This album is not one to which you can listen in the background while tending to other things; it demands--and deserves--your undivided attention. This album is, in a word, brilliant. One look at the album cover art, and you know you're in for something that's as entertaining as it is unique. It's rare that you find a composer who can successfully combine ass-kicking jazz/rock with an off-the-wall sense of humor, but Horowitz does it in a way that leaves you wanting more. It's the kind of music that makes you think, laugh, and tap your foot, all while trying to decide whether you'd prefer another virtual appearance by John Cleese or Jenna Jameson. For me, I just need to figure out which Horowitz album I'm going to listen to next." -- Anonymous reviewer, AOL Music Now!

"Somewhere out in the desert sands of Tunisia, a lone building sits, baked white under the hot sun. Inside, past a gray wooden door, cool darkness reigns supreme. Bedouin cowboys and ex-pat pioneers lie scattered about the earthen floor, leaning against large faded pillows and sipping sweet mint tea. In one corner, an old TV rests on its side...."
Click to read more of Bryce Thomas' review

"Very deep in The Code's mix of new-wave goofiness, King Crimson soundblurts, an ardent-gard jazz rough housing, Steve Horowitz has fashioned an album so widely accomplished that the whole jumble could be mistaken for a various-artists romp if it weren't for the consistent voicings, musicianship and composerly affection.... Think Franz Koglmann sneeking a peek at Oingo Boingo charts. Or better yet, don't bother trying to break the code, just revel in the cypher."
- Marc Weidenbaum, Pulse magazine

The Code's latest multi-genre blitzkrieg covers all the bases with a very 90's sexual candor. Numerous levels of time honored dysfunction are bared in the words of performance artist/ singer Sten Rudstrom...A mad musicality intertwines with these convoluted themes as the world-class players let loose with twisted, brutal funk and vulcanic improvisations.
- Sam Prestianni, SF Weekly

LIVE:
Engineers - From SAE class 3/98 Rotterdam: Randy Hoogervorst, Sebastian Van Hooydonk, Tom Leemans, Ralph Thielen, Eucenio Cuadrado de Wit, Paul Van Hellemond, Guert Engelsman, Kristof Melotte. Recorded live May 1999 at the SJU-Jazzpodium in Utrecht, The Paradox in Tilburg, The Cafe Binnen in Amsterdam and The Cafe Wilhelmina in Eindhoven. [DDD]

STUDIO:
Engineers - Eucenio Cuadrado de Wit, Remko Takken. Recorded and mixed at the studios of SAE Technology College Amsterdam. [DDD]

LIVE:
During the last two weeks of May 1999, this group of dedicated musicians joined forces to record over 10 hours of live material in some of Holland's coolest clubs. The live CD collects the best takes from various locations, such as the Sju Jazzpodium in Utrecht, the Paradox in Tilburg, the Provadje Theater in Alkmaar, and the Cafe Binnen in Amsterdam.

STUDIO:
But that is not all. During the weeks that the band was gigging, they also found time for a studio session captured in its entirety on the second disc.

NOTES:
These two CDs contain "The Complete Dutch Sessions," the live and studio recordings of my Dutch-American quartet. All the material was recorded during the last two weeks of May 1999. The live takes come from various venues around Holland. The studio takes were captured one fine Sunday afternoon at the studios of SAE Technology College in Amsterdam. Presented here for your listening enjoyment are the tastiest biscuits, rolled out from over 12 hours of live and studio material. All the music, either live or in studio was recorded to 8 channel digital ADAT machines and mixed on a Yamaha O2R digital console. In all cases, very little if any editing or fancy studio production techniques were used. As a result, I think you will be able to hear the natural intensity and honest hard blowing of the band. Even the studio recordings are mostly one takers. The key was to put up the mikes and get to the material as fast as possible, warts and all, Overdubbing was not an option. As with every live performance of this type, errors in the form of strange notes will occur. Every effort has been made to remove these "bad notes" but never at the expense of the natural feeling of the track. So, please enjoy listening to this music as much as we enjoyed playing it. Special thanks go out to all the folks who turned out to the shows and helped to make this an unforgetable musical experience.

Live Recording Radio 4

The concert was made possible by the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts.

The artice below was translated from Volkskrant - February 16, 2001.

Rocksichord, Monochord and Clavioline: exotic names for outlandish sounding keyboards from a distant age. Samplers and synthesizers didn't exist in the 1950s, there was some wild experimenting going on. But who thinks that in the present digital era eccentricity and pioneering are gone, is on the wrong track.

The midi marimba is a modern synthesizer which, as the midi-guitar and the midi-saxophone, let loose of the idea of a keyboard. But, unlike the modern toys mentioned above, the midi marimba adds something new. Just like the vibraphone, the marimba is played with four sticks. American percussionist Jim Meneses uses the full potential of that playing technique, when he strikes four notes in a broken chord.

In his midi marimba are numerous audio samples of beat up little organs, and with his adverse timing, Meneses comes alarmingly close to one of the great pioneers of synthesizer experiments: Sun Ra.

In Paradox, Tilburg, Meneses was one of the soloists in the American-Dutch Mousetrap Quartet, a group that specializes in the early music of Sun Ra.

Band leader Steve Horowitz met Amsterdam-based trombonist Joost Buis during a previous Dutch tour; both are real Sun Ra-experts, just like Mousetrap's reedplayers Peter van Bergen and Dan Plonsey. Together they make clear what was so intriguing about the early records of the bandleader and composer Sun Ra, who died in 1993.

Horowitz gave a funky groove to the dense harmonies, extremely low tempos and other musical blow-ups. Plonsey took care for some of the 'recompositions' the group played. His rehashes of Discipline, a numbered set of pieces by Sun Ra, were called Dishpan. They were made of clear notions and marginal notes for the soloists.

Peter van Bergens energetically raw sound was counterpointed with a rare feel of tradionality, played by melodic trombonist Joost Buis. Purely Dutch projects around jazz composers tend to be closer to chamber music, with only a slight interest in swing. Mousetrap fully realises a connection between danceability and free improvisation, without relying on traditionalism.

Dan Plonsey thoroughly undermined the Dutch soloists with floating tone-bendings, and hilaric asides on three slide whistles and oboe.

In doing this, at least some of the theatric aspects in Sun Ra's work also came to the fore. Ra's colourful dresses, and communal choirs had to be envisioned by the public themselves.

"It's an intelligence geared towards rooting around for simple beauties. It's light (but anti-lite). It's translucent, and it floats around, about two feet up off the ground. It's like hiking on the ridge trail at Tilden Park around dusk, and seeing a fox. Also, it's not exactly jazz (much as we love jazz) it's not "improvcore," and it's definitely not academic!"
- Kenneth Holtzman, August 22, 1994

"We like to deliver the unexpected from within the realms of the vaguely (or even frighteningly) familiar. We wanted to make something that would sneak out and bite our listeners on their silky necks."
- Dan Plonsey

"On their new recording, Dipping Into Color, the Manufacturing of Humidifiers chose to feature their compositions, and the result is a music that is both mystifying and exciting. Their compositions elude categorization without being contrived towards that end. Each piece has its own logic, a logic that is visible and grasp-able, and yet they're also totally crazy. They're like paintings that keep changing their colors: you have to chase after them."
- Kenneth Holtzman, August 22, 1994

A special collection of Yucca Tree Artists diong what they do best. Package includes Art peices, stickers and great CD graphics.

"This is a compilation of fairly extro music by American and Swiss musicians and collectives. You get a little of everything -- some fairly atypical ambient works, a wealth of skewed-perspective pop songs, some electroacoustic compositions and a whole juddering wodge of music that can't really be effectively or reliably categorized. In other words, a damn fine assortment.

"Of particular interest are a suite of works by Pink Bob, which combine martial parade-ground themes with rock-opera pop songs -- they seem to be part of thex libretto from a Musical That Never Was. Schrödinger's Cat turn in two cuts that teeter between minimalist techno and sound collage -- particularly on "Upright in the Mist", which seems built around the manipulation of a skipping CD (or CDs). Joe Fleury turns in an introspective trio of rather dark, minimal electro-Euro-pop songs that reveal more with each listen, while Noble Gas' "Toadstools" is the sprawling ambient track cum Chris and Cosey tune that every compilation needs. Three pieces from Klimperei also intrigue -- "Le Canotier" and "Pour Cartonneux" are mostly piano, while "Les Jolies Filles" combines cheesy MIDI and kazoo.

"Point of Yucca, Volume Two is delightfully varied and thoroughly unpredictable -- and, since it seems to have been out for a while now, hopefully someone will read this review and send us Volume Three."
- George Zahora