HAZMAT MODINE: Bahamut

Hazmat Modine

Bahamut

© 2006 Geckophonic/Zpsygoat (837101141918)

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Pan-Ethnic-Roots-Blues: Deep American roots music, seamlessly melded with so many influences and instruments, Caribbean, Eastern European, Asian, etc…even the throat singers of Tuva. Completely unique....... Completely : HAZMAT MODINE

notes

This long-awaited debut CD is a uniquely intercontinental sonic collage encompassing a tremendous range of instrumental, vocal, and conceptual originality--all with a lot of soul and groove. Like the mythological beast of its title track, HAZMAT Modine's BAHAMUT holds the world in it's eye. Its fourteen songs are steeped deep in American roots but merge influences as diverse as Romanian brass, Middle Eastern fable, Jamaican Calypso, and Tuvan-Mongolian ballad. Wade Schuman's velvet-in-sand vocals are backed by a core ensemble that includes electric and steel guitar, sparring harmonicas, trumpet, drums, and mutant tuba, and joined by the likes of Romanian cimbalom, electric banjitar, contrabass sax, claviola, and bass marimba. BAHAMUT's musical range is genuinely singular and innovative: On one track, ghostly guitar accompanied by the nocturnal baying of Indonesian street dogs morphs into explosive late night R&B in a New York club; on another, a Balkan instrumental leads into pulsating western swing; the CD even features three uncanny collaborations with Huun-Hur-Tu, the virtuoso Throat Singers of Tuva.


"One of New York’s most original bands, HAZMAT MODINE delivers a rustic, deliriously Dionysian blend of whorehouse Blues, Reggae, Klezmer, Country and Gypsy-tinged music. The band features the dueling harmonicas of front-man Wade Schuman and his sparring partner Randy Weinstein, funky tuba powerhouse Joseph Daly, virtuoso guitarists Pete Smith and Michael Gomez, and drummer Rich Huntley. Schuman is one of the most dynamic performers on the New York scene, and HAZMAT holds down a smoldering groove behind Schuman’s raspy, bluesy voice and passionately energetic stage presence. Their playful blend of genres also extends to their use of instrumentation, including the Chinese mouthorgan, the claviola, and sometimes cimbalom (Romanian hammered dulcimer). While they play mostly originals, their cover versions are choice and eclectic, including songs by Slim Gaillard, Jimmy Rogers, Jaybird Coleman, and Irving Berlin. Their live show frequently features guest artists from the crème de la crème of the New York music scene, including cult-favorite singer/accordionist Rachelle Garniez, Moonlighters steel guitarist extraordinaire Henry Bogdan and the great cimbalomist Alex Federiouk. With their sly musical wit, expert musicianship and completely unique sound, HAZMAT MODINE has built a wide and devoted following, drawing crowds to shows at venues as diverse as the Knitting Factory, Terra Blues, the Fez, Satalla, Joe's Pub and Galapagos Art Space." Alan Young - Trifecta, NYC


"HAZMAT MODINE plays the kind of Blues one might have found in a whorehouse in New Orleans had the city been built on the Black Sea somewhere alongside Macao and inhabited by Gypsies. The band is driven by a pair harmonicas, backed by tuba, drums, guitars, and trumpet, with the addition of special guests playing exotic instruments such as the claviola, the cimbalom or the Chinese mouth-organ, the bass sax and the Sarusaphone. Wade Schuman has the appropriately throaty voice of someone who has both hopped freight trains and collaborated with the Throat Singers of Tuva (really...). " Olivier Conan - Barbès, NYC


"From the moment he stepped out onto the tiny Joe's Pub stage tonight, Wade Schuman wasted no time in asserting his credentials as a musician to be reckoned with. Pulling out a harmonica, Schuman played an unaccompanied solo of stunning imagination and skill. He made the tiny instrument sing and growl; he blew multiphonic lines punctuated by sharp, percussive pops. During one stretch, he created a doppler-like effect; the closest comparison I could make would be a speeding train winding through a hilly countryside, the sound shuttered by trees and swallowed by the occasional tunnel." Steve Smith - Night After Night, New York City

"They’re a calypso/alt-country/blues/gypsy band . . . which is obviously what the world needs most" Dafydd Goff - Times of London

"Here's a welcome clash of musical assumptions: blues, reggae, klezmer, country and gypsy flourishes-pulled off by musicians with considerable chops on guitars, tuba, mouthorgan, and other assorted instruments. Further pluses: lead singer Wade Schuman's velvet-in-sand vocals and kinetic presence." Oumano - VOICE CHOICE The Village Voice 2004

"The singer and harmonica player Wade Schuman's musical vision sounds like something out of Dr. Suess. His group augments Mr. Schumans own avant-blues stylings with a contra-bass, a banjitar, tuba, flugel, trumpet, sheng and, most important, Tuvan throat singing. " Sinagra - The New York Times

"Wittily Funky Music" The New York Times, 2005

reviews

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  • If you could only pick three harp albums to be stranded with on a desert island.
    author: Shane D.

    ...this would have to be one of them. This is some wacked-out, freaky, fantastic stuff. Acquire it immideately.

  • Powerful blues mixed with heavy central Asian shamanic sounds.
    author: Nejem Raheem

    I had heard "It Calls Me" on a compilation CD by InRadio, and really dug it. I initially thought "oh hell, more idiots sampling Tuvan music. I'm sick of this garbage." However, no Deep Forest these folks! Needless to say, the song grew on me, and I bought "Bahamut." While some tracks sounded overly familiar (Bahamut itself sounds like the Squirrel Nut Zippers' "Hell", but that's partly because Calypso all sounds kinda similar), these guys really hammer. Tremendous blues with that crazy-ass harmonica, and when they play with Huun-Huur-Tu, they're not just sampling, they're mixing the whole damn sound up. Which, to any fans of "Genghis Blues," is a rare and powerful thing. I keep emailing gig dates to all my NYC friends, and now wish I had never left. Oh, and thanks, CD Baby! You all are just the sweetest.

  • wow.
    author: larry jarrett barnhill III

    "it calls me" was on the radio and i had to pull over. a brilliant mix of that pre-war blues w/ international influences. i think its safe to say that i am now hooked.

  • Whoops & Hollers
    author: Howard Parks

    Imagine playing blues harp to cure a sick foal on the steppes of central Asia, or traveling with a gypsy troop through east Texas. You're in Hazmat Modine territory. World music, worldly music, and sheer fun besides. An ambitious blend of Django Reinhardt meets Tom Waits meets Little Walter... Highly recommended!

  • Hazmat at The Grammys
    author: SanPedroDave

    I never thought you could bend a harmonica note in half let alone 12 at a time. What a pumped up album. Hope to see the group on the left coast one of these days...take the slow train.....

  • Refreshing - can't wait for a tour & next release
    author: John Schumacher

    Heard a review on NPR. Can't get enough of the cd - been listening to it non-stop for a week staight.

  • Not good to read a book to!
    author: Loni

    I stumbled across Hazmat Modine on a trip to NYC, bought the cd immediately after they finished playing, intending to give it to a friend who plays the harmonica. After I listened to it there was no way that I could possibly part with it. My only complaint is that I cannot read a book to it cos I am joyously impelled to dance and sway and sing along (thanks for including the words folks) If you wish to give this a gift I suggest that you buy one for yourself at the same time.

  • When is Hazmat Modine coming to Holland ????
    author: Bob Koenders

    Everytime I put on the Bahamut CD my shoes start dancing by its own. As I heard this Music the first time on the radio, in Holland, it realy blew my mind. Playing the bluesharp myself, what a plessure to hear the harp so wel mixed with al the other instruments. When will we be able to visit a Hazmat Modine concert in Holland or else in Europe?

  • Fantastic music and a great-sounding album
    author: Fred Kinbom

    I got this CD today and it is brilliant! In addition to the original (and great) blend of instruments and styles, it is also exceptionally well produced. Highly recommended!

  • Fabulous, music and voice is addicting
    author: Carla Pack

    Seen on Breakfast with the arts and went on line to purchase. I love the music and I could listen to his voice on and on. I wake up singing dry spell. LOL It is addicting! Keep it up. Fabulous Carla Pack

  • A Full Chicago, by way of New Orleans with a slight detour through Odessa.
    author: bob_luke

    If you've heard only the title song, you can be forgiven for thinking that Hazmat Modine is nothing more than just another world beat band featuring clever tunes, tight arrangements and eclectic instrumentation. All of the above is correct, except the part about "just another," because Hazmat Modine is a true original. These folks rock! Frontman Wade Schuman sports a rasp like a lead pipe hitting a brick wall. He coaxes, he moans, he laughs that crazy Klezmer laugh that descends into a clarinet sob-and he plays a mean harmonica. The rest of the band?-all masters of the craft. Particularly interesting are the dueling harmonicas, as well as the tuba holding down the bass part. And of course there's that contrabass saxophone, the lowest (as well as biggest, heaviest and tallest) reed on the planet. It's a Full Chicago, by way of New Orleans with a slight detour through Odessa. Pick up this CD and you will find that Hazmat Modine can REALLY play the Blues, and a whole lotta other stuff besides.

  • Great - the music is a blast.
    author: Richard C.

    Hazmat is a blast and the music is great fun. Everyone I've played the CD for has really enjoyed the tunes. And CD Baby is a wonderful music service; I love their customer pampering written texts and e-mail responses.

  • Fabulous and extremely satisfying
    author: Sarah Barmettler

    I saw Hazmat Modine on Breakfast with the Arts and was so impressed! I love their music and would buy their next CD immediately...their use of unusual instruments is impressive...I also got a good laugh from the communications from CD Baby and will order from you again...

  • Fantastic!
    author: Mary Firary

    Saw Hazmat Modine play on A&E's Breakfast with the Arts and bought the CD right away. Contrabass Sax?? Crazy!

  • A facinating yard sale of musical styles
    author: jules

    This CD is a facinating yard sale of various musical genres and sounds, it's the soundtrack to a some long lost book of creepy childrens stories (creepy stories for children that is, not stories for creepy children! :) ), a marching band from a Tim Burton movie, a radio show intercepted from a channel broadcasting in the dustbowl in a parallel version of the 1930s, the sound of the Warsaw ghetto, a front porch on the Mississipi, the back alleys of a mythic New York..... Odd and beguiling, this is a world well worth exploring.... And some absolutely superb harmonica work by the way!

  • I love it!!!!!
    author: Sandy McKenzie

    I feel like it was my destiny to find this CD. lol I loved it so much, I bought another one as a gift. Bravo!

  • Love it !
    author: AirMojo

    I really love this CD! I couldn't wait to put all the songs on my iPod so I could listen to them on my daily walks and drives to and from work ! Like nothing else I have in my music collection... Being a harmonica player myself (hobby only!), I have lots of different 'harmonica' music--blues, country, folk, classical, bluesgrass. Yeah, this ain't just 'harmonica' music! I love all the instruments and the uniqueness of the whole shabang ! When's the next album coming out ?!

  • Outstanding, excellent actually beyond my expectations.
    author: Paul L

    Saw the Hazmat Modine band on TV - Entertainment with the Arts - had to have the album. By the time the 30 minute segment had ended I had already ordered. I have listened to it for over a week morning and night during my commute, makes it ever so much easier. Well worth having as a part of a collection. Waiting for the next album.

  • The freshest, most original music I've heard in years.
    author: Sue Carey

    I wandered all over Sydney trying to find this. The guys in the record stores slowly backed away when I started babbling about tubas and Tuvan throat singing. Thank god for CDbaby. This music is alive. It breathes. The freshest, most original music in years.

  • Awesome energetic happy mad giggling music for a change !!!
    author: Mary Ann Richardson

    First heard this band on A&E on a Sunday morn and I ran to watch my tv. I couldn't leave the room. Didn't want to. My b'day was around the corner and I asked my DD if she could get it for me. She FedEx'd it to get here on my b' day. I had to laugh quietly not to miss a beat. So much FUN !!! I listen to it once a day or more every day. When will the music book for piano be available?????

  • Wonderful, original music and choice of instruments
    author: Marilyn

    What an awesome CD! The original songs are so unique and the choice of instruments, the same! Thanks for a great piece of entertainment!!!

  • Brilliant
    author: DiAnna

    It's about bloody time good talent came along, and this wonderful band absolutely has it all! Thanks for giving my ears a well needed break!

  • Love the CD!!!!!!!!!!
    author: Sandy McKenzie

    Please keep me posted as to where you are playing. We will be in NYC next April and I have fallen in love with the CD. It is the best music I have heard in a long time. I never watch Breakfast with the Arts, and just happened to turn it on in time to hear you. How lucky am I? I am so excited about the CD because I feel like I have made a new discovery and am passing the sound along to family and friends......can't wait to hear updates on the band.

  • the cd is great
    author: Angela McHugh

    the cd is great. i love the blues, and this is the blues with a edge.

  • Move from depression to impression!
    author: Vic Nance

    As a baby-boomer,I still carry a love for Funk. But I also love old bluesy Gospel and Rock'n roll. Wow--IT HAS ALL THAT. I loved it,and finally got it back from my neighbors.Everyone I shared it with was rocked! Thanks.vic

  • It lives and moves!
    author: Larry Rapoport

    Finding this CD was like stepping through a looking glass into a strange new world where the blues is a vital art form, world music has a beat, pop is interesting, jug bands have something to say, and the harmonica is an expressive musical instrument. I'm there, I'm listening and looking around, and I just can't believe it's real - but it must be, because I keep playing it, again and again. Lots of folks commenting on the many and eclectic influences of this new CD and it's all true and clever but it is just more than the sum of its parts. May God and Wilson Pickett forgive me for saying so, but this CD has . . . soul. It really has a real soul that lives and breathes and makes about a dozen crappy tired genres wake up, hug each other and dance. They dance together for the first time, and I suspect right now they are out having sex somewhere. I just hope they have kids.

  • author: frank mallis

    Wow. Google 'Hazmat Modine', find their website, seek out more information. The hair on the back of my neck rises up *every* time I hear the title track. To try and classify this album under a handy-hyphenated genre name is to do it a disservice. Funky blues harp harmonicas and fat-ass grumbly sax that hit so hard it just hurts. Vocals that go from sweet and playful to possessed and howling, with lyrics that are enchanted. Originals & covers. The comfortable and familiar blended with sounds that fell from the moon. An album that's reminiscent of favorites from your past, but is closer to that thing you thought you saw once, heard once, so long ago - - or did you just imagine it? Oh, and smoky mystic klezmer cymbalom careening into hot jazz. Oh, and the occasional drone of Tuvan throat singers, but where's it going now...?! - - and how does it pull off being so goofy and hot and fun, and strike me as being so spiritual? If my review has gone loopy, it must be because I was genuinely struck by this music, and the CD impressed me very much. (In case you hadn't noticed) I hear tons of different, eclectic, unusual music all the time, vintage and new, from all over the map, and I want you to know that you need to hear this album. Honest.

  • author: Bengt Eriksson

    ...Hazmat Modine is one of the most remarkable musical groups, and they have made one of the most remarkable records I´ve ever heard. On the CD cover there is a harmonica with five musical horns (like shawms, say). And the music sounds just like that. In the CD booklet there are pictures of a few different groups that all seem to be named Hazmat Modine: a gypsy group (horns and and a drum), a family group (violin, mandolin, guitar, accordion), a group of American indians (lots of horns, a small and a big drum). That´s the sound of Hazmat Modine – like a gang of musicians who happened to meet and started making music with any instruments around. Or like all American immigrants (African, Jewish, Russian, West Indian, Scottish, Irish…) started a band together. The orchestra leader, Wade Schuman, sings, plays harmonica and lute guitar. Other instruments: another harmonica, another guitars, drums, tuba, trumpet and some more. Blues meets jazz seeking its roots in New Orleans, Africa and klezmer. And, and… My ears turn inside out in every direction to hear all of it. What a fantastic music!

  • Delicious ear candy. Bacchus plays this at his house parties!
    author: Amy D.

    Serious fun. I love love love this album. Irreverent, sexy, hilarious drunkenness for your soul. Buy it.

  • love it. Creative musically and instrumentally. Wonderful twists and turns.
    author: jim ewing

    This cd is fun. It's a musical circus with delightful events and wonderful suprises. I want more.

  • author: TIME OUT MOSCOW

    ...A truly mysterious band about which the only sure thing to say is: It is extremely New York. Only in that megopolis can such collectives blossom that invent such amazing combinations of music out of so many genres…

  • Marvelous! Straight ahead, mystifying, world beat blues!
    author: John Havener

    Too good to be true! The music just rolls out of the box and overwhelms the listener. Makes you want to dance, sing, cry and shout for joy, all at once. From the Italian intro to the New York send-off, by far one of the best albums of its type out there.

  • It's been a long time...
    author: ladylhi

    It's been a long time since I have heard a band so refreshingly doing their own thing, different from everyone else, and have it sound sooooooo great! All the other reviews have said it all. I just thought I would add a shout out from one more helpless new fan!

  • Crazy, wonderful music.
    author: Chris

    Such an eclectic style, but it works so well. I am hesitant to compare them to anyone, it is not really fair. But, if I had to try to pin down their sound, I would say that if Tom Waits had a baby by the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, that child might grow up to lead a band like Hazmat Modine.

  • author: Scott Stevens of SOUND ROOTS

    ...While their own description of the creature on the title track reveals different details, dazzling also seems an appropriate adjective for this wildly eclectic NYC band. At first blush, Hazmat Modine is a blues band: harmonicas, resonator/slide guitars, drums, some horns. But then there's the throat singing (courtesy of Huun Huur Tu) and Alexander Fedoriouk's cimbalom. A disorienting moment later, you settle into a mysterious undiscovered country, a crossroad where the collision of Tuvan, Roma, and Americana not only makes sense, it's inevitable. Imagine a plane carrying the Squrrel Nut Zippers and Bob Brozman crashing among a troupe of Roma encamped on the Tuvan steppe, and you'll start to get the idea. It's world music for blues/swing fans, Americana for world music junkies, and just damn good...

  • author: Planet Harmonica

    "Saying that it’s hard to define a musical genre for Bahamut would be a grave understatement. In fact that is, to me, one of it’s endearing qualities. Bahamut is a world music album in the best sense of the word: it draws inspiration from varied musical traditions around the world and blends them in a coherent and unique sound....The breadth and variety of instrumentation and arrangements in Bahamut is astounding...."

  • author: Ben Felton

    ...."Saying that it’s hard to define a musical genre for Bahamut would be a grave understatement. In fact that is, to me, one of it’s endearing qualities. Bahamut is a world music album in the best sense of the word: it draws inspiration from varied musical traditions around the world and blends them in a coherent and unique sound."

  • Amazingly real!!!!
    author: jill

    If you want a CD that FORCES you to dance around your home - this is it! Somehow, Hazmat was able to translate the energy, just about perfectly, of their live shows to a recording (which is not an easy feat). Totally different, but totally amazing, Hazmat Modine falls into the category of sounding genuinely different and great at the same time. Well done boys!

  • author: Time Out New York

    "Hazmat Modine's newly issued Bahamut (Geckophonic) provides a winning showcase for a harmonica-fronted, brass heavy band that mines an exotic blues from the farthest reaches of the planet."

  • author: TRIFECTAGRAM Choice pick: Hazmat Modine - Bahamut

    Equally good as ecstatic party record and headphone album, Bahamut is a lock for best full-length debut of 2006...and it's only February. It'll be hard for anybody to beat the wild, dyonisian fun, spectacular musicianship and off-the-wall psychedelic outrageousness that frontman Wade Schuman and his army of cohorts - there are more musicians on this album than players on your average football team - have come up with here. Hazmat Modine's sprawling, rustic, frequently hypnotic improvisational style defies categorization, incorporating elements of 1920s delta blues, reggae, klezmer, gypsy music and rhythms that literally span the globe. If the Coen brothers ever made a Prohibition-era movie, Hazmat Modine would be the ideal band to do the soundtrack. This album is something akin to Sergeant Pepper played by gypsies, right down to its bizarre between-song samples (among them a wannabe alien abductee with a thick Maine accent) and brief instrumental interludes that pop up unexpectedly. The songs on this cd swing and slink through an amber half-light, like some 19th century medium lit up with a wormwood grin on the way to a triumphant post-seance bash.

  • author: Sophie Solomon - Metro News, London

    "HAZMAT modine - Bahamut, I got my buddy amazing songwriter Kezz Stone to thank for this latest discovery - a wondrously bacchanalian blend of country, blues and gypsy-tinged music straight of New York’s ethno-underground. Right now, this is the song that I can’t get enough of, the one I have to listen to several times a day, a song I wish I’d written. It’s all about the mix of dueling harmonicas, funky tuba, bluesy guitar and frontman Wade Schuman’s raspy gravely voice. It's as if 1930's calypso legend Wilmouth Houdini, Sidney Bechet and a Haitian band all ran into each other at a Gypsy wedding where Fanfare Ciocarlia were rocking some Balkan brass. The track breaks down to an amazing description of the entire universe, inspired by Jorge Luis Borges's "Book of Imaginary Beings"- Bahamut is a fantastical creature, a mysterious mythical animal that no one has ever seen... "

  • author: The New Yorker

    "Hazmat Modine. What do you get when you combine a pair of harmonicas, a tuba, some drums, a lap steel guitar, a trumpet, and the throat-singing group Huun-Huur-Tu? You get "Bahamut," the début album by this wild group led by the singer and harmonica player Wade Schuman. They play blues originals, mostly, that are the product of Schuman’s limitless imagination. His voice, for that matter, appears to be bottomless."

  • author: Richard Gehr - The Village Voice

    "Seems like ages since harmonicas have sounded as hep as Wade Schuman’s and Randy Weinstein’s do in this hand-painted confab of rusty blues, piquant rumbas, sawdust-floor reggae, Hawaiian guitar, and—sure, why not?—Tuvan throat singing. Welcome to the old weird globalism."

  • author: Steve Smith TIMEOUT NEW YORK

    "Not everyone can sing, we don't all dance, and some folks don't even love. But if one thing unites humanity, it's that we all screw up from time to time—and that's what makes the blues our universal language. Taj Mahal, Tom Waits and Ali Farka Toure have all traced the ley lines that conjoin the Mississippi Delta to points beyond in mutual mopery. Hazmat Modine leader Wade Schuman is a fellow traveler, one who's cashed in an unusually high number of frequent-flier miles pursuing his mojo. A dizzying harmonica player (check out his solo feature, "Lost Fox Train") and soulful guitarist, Schuman steers a combo whose members have punched the clock in jazz, Latin, klezmer and Hawaiian-swing groups. No doubt that's why Hazmat Modine sounds so comfortable crunching styles ranging from ska to Balkan brass raves and beyond, not to mention jamming with Tuvan overtone singers Huun-Huur-Tu on three tracks. Bahamut is thick with ear-tickling arrangements, such as the two harmonicas, two tubas, bass saxophone, Hawaiian steel guitar and cimbalom of "Who Walks in When I Walk Out?" Schuman's winningly gruff vocals are well suited to a bluesman's typically put-upon malaise. He also has a knack for turning a poetic phrase, as in "Dry Spell" ("You say that you're so thirsty / You'd even drink my tears"). The disc is liberally soaked in whimsy, nowhere more so than on the title track: Even gargantuan fish gods of ancient lore get the blues, it seems."

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