Zu & Spaceways Inc. – Radiale (CD)

Rome's Zu have spent two decades weaponizing the bass-heavy trio format against every comfortable idea about jazz, metal, and noise, and their 2005 collaboration with Chicago's Spaceways Inc. brought that attack into direct conversation with the AACM-rooted avant-funk of Fred Anderson's orbit. Ken Vandermark, Jeb Bishop, and the Spaceways crew carry serious free jazz credibility, making this transatlantic collision less a curiosity and more a genuine meeting of minds on the outer edges of improvised music.