On the one hand, punk and free jazz may appear to be poles apart – opposite ends of the musical spectrum on practically every level. But the overlap in attitude and aesthetic is quite significant. Both push against musical boundaries, both are on the periphery of the mainstream, and both produce music that at its core is entirely rebellious. With this spirit of interconnectedness and shared exploration, avant-garde jazz sax and clarinet player, Ken Vandermark and Terrie Ex, aka Terrie Hessels of post-punk band The Ex, found common ground, working together now for over 15 years - as guests on each other’s records, as part of improvisational quartet Lean Left and as a duo in their own right. Yet despite being onstage together countless times, This is Not a Holiday! is only the second album that the pair have released as a duo and rather appropriately it is a live recording of their 2021 performance at Poznan’s SARP Social Club.

As individual artists, both Vandermark and Ex have exceptionally impressive CVs. The Chicago-based Vandermark has been centred firmly in the jazz world since the 1990s and to say he is an extraordinary and prolific collaborator would be an understatement. While at university he formed several jazz combos, but really came to fame when he joined the NRG Ensemble – Hal Russell’s 1970s Chicago improvisational combo dedicated to the pursuit of free jazz. Vandermark has since gone on to work with an incredible list of musicians including Waclaw Zimpel, Joe McPhee, Peter Brotzmann while steering his own ventures including Vandermark 5; the DKV Trio and Spaceways Inc the latter two with Hamid Drake. In amongst all this, of course, is Lean Left, the jazz quartet featuring Paal Nilssen-Love, Andy Moor and guitarist Terrie Ex.

 Across the Atlantic, and as part of the Dutch underground, Ex and her band  The Ex settled into the post-punk rather than the ‘punk punk’ camp almost from the off - ready to experiment and tease convention. With well-spun anarchic credentials, this mentality extended to their music as free jazz, African rhythms and a whole collection of leftfield influences started to seep in - screeching, jazz-plundered sax, for example, appearing as early as 1984 on their Blueprint for a Blackout album. And while remaining a stalwart member of the band to this very day, Ex started to expand beyond her post-punk leanings, experimenting outside the group while also bringing others into the fold including Vandermark, who rather remarkably has guested with The Ex over 100 times.

This is Not a Holiday! features eight pieces of improvisational performance performed by Vandermark and Ex on a single night in Poland with music so intricate and multifaceted that it can barely be described. This is the work of two experimental architects at the peak of their creativity - feeding off each other’s intensity and imagination as the music peaks and troughs and we live every phrase, every crackle, every buzz, every squeak, every hum, every pause. Frenetic in parts as in ‘Perpetual Underground’, more reticent and subtle in others, a la ‘Wrong Pocket’ as the duo channel the avant-garde, modern classical, free jazz while the artistry throughout, especially from Vandermark is quite something. There is such depth at play here that This is Not a Holiday!  really does require several listens by which point its fully taken root in your veins.