Attitude! — Pause & Effect

Giving your band a bold name is a gesture that needs to be backed up by your music - as a vast history of execrable metal and punk bands with striking names will testify to. Thus ‘Attitude!’ requires a band with attitude, and whilst there is an attitude on display here it fails to muster up the force to justify the exclamation mark.

Attitude! is Rose Tang (vocals, guitar, piano, percussion), Ayumi Ishito (tenor saxophone), and Wen-Ting Wu (drums), and the trio play various shades of jazz, sometimes loose, sometimes more pointed, but largely acting as a support - or response - to the words of Tang. These words are tirades against sexism, racism, caricatures of ‘Asian babes’, and state attacks on freedom of speech and democracy. Tang was notably present at China’s brutal suppression of the Tiananmen square protests, and ‘Flames with No Names’ addresses those events whilst also declaring solidarity with Hong Kong. Her lyrics are spoken and ranted, and supplemented by some vocalising.

Pause & Effect is largely ‘jazz with poetry’ in practical terms, in fact it rather conforms to stereotypical notions of beatnik/‘original hippie’ freakout music, with large emotive gestures from the trio - perhaps apt given the countercultural political stance. These gestures tend to follow the content and delivery of Tang’s words, and at worse there’s often a sense of call and response, which is tempting to pursue as a musician but it becomes a repetitive dead end - it emphasises the lyrical content, but traps the trio in a general structure of ever-decreasing returns. There are moments of post-punk intensity on ‘Who Flung Dung’ that approach the potency of riot grrrl (for example), but broadly speaking Pause & Effect comes across as somewhat tame, despite the trio’s efforts; again, I think that the frequent use of the instruments to respond to the lyrics means that the trio rarely coalesce into a unified force, with all the power that can result from that. Saying that, ‘Flames with No Names’ has some moments where Attitude!come together, and the vocalising sections also provide passages where Ayumi Ishito and Wen-Ting Wu can cut loose, hitting some peaks. The fourth piece, ‘8 Steps/7 O’Clock’, propels along on a nice spiralling riff, and feels like something that’s been building for a long time has finally been released - probably the most engaging track on the album. The final piece, ‘Conversation’, sees Tang switching her wah-driven guitar - which often acts as a textural element, almost akin to background electronics - for a piano, and at nearly 25 minutes it’s by far the longest track on the album; here the trio have more space and are able to stretch out, moving through sections of varying effectiveness.
 

As I said, I feel that Pause & Effect’s potential is often blunted by its broad structuring around Tang’s words; the full capability of the trio rarely solidifies to give the words the force they deserve. The album isn’t at all irredeemable, and I would definitely be interested in hearing a follow-up, but Pause & Effect feels like the groundwork for something more special.