Press for Jonathan Kane's ‘February’:
 


"Paradise between the back porch, the urban jungle and the heavens above ... The album’s down-home grooves shine with an orchestral, massed-guitar luster that's often associated with Glenn Branca and Kane’s frequent collaborator Rhys Chatham. Layered electric and acoustic sounds create overtones that trick the listener into hearing nonexistent organs and harmonicas. In place of the mind-boggling beats for which he's known, Kane underpins these drones with a deceptively simple, forcefully executed shuffle. His swinging opuses exude bright, earthy euphony instead of dark, cerebral dissonance: Witness the rollicking “Sis” or the luminous version of the traditional "Motherless Child." Rarely does the avant-garde rock this hard."
Time Out New York


“Jonathan Kane delivers his solo debut February with high decibel self-assurance. His music's intrinsic swagger is crucial to the album's success, marshaling his minimalist riffs to their trance-inducing limits, deftly sparking a synaptic link between Neu!-style repetition and the hypnotic electric blues of Junior Kimbrough. On these five instrumental pieces he's stripped away all of the music's inessentials, paring these blues-based excursions down to a streamlined, locomotive core. Kicking immediately into an unapologetic foursquare blues riff, the 12-minute opener "Curl" begins to build a tenacious momentum through a series of almost imperceptable directional shifts, and soon the massed overtones of the guitars course against Kane's powerhouse drumming to assemble into a singularly captivating propulsive drone. Likewise, the set's version of the traditional "Motherless Child" elongates the old spiritual's structure nearly beyond the point of recognition, with each melodic detail considered in isolation beneath distant ascending distortion and the rolling boulders of Kane's unyielding rhythms. Spacious tracks like "Pops" and "Sis" incorporate subtle traces of parched earth Americana, supplied with a certain sawtooth grit and a cold-blooded rattlesnake resolve. Kane adds and removes sonic elements with the single-minded endurance of a wide, muddy river carving itself a canyon, and with the unwavering confidence of an already-veteran solo performer secure in his vision.”
Pitchfork

 
“Drummer Jonathan Kane knows from Heavy: He was the beat-of-doom in Swans and has kept taut time for minimalists Rhys Chatham and La Monte Young. Kane also plays guitar and bass here, wedding the brutal severity of Delta country boogie and Seventies German pulse rock – all dead-ahead motion and mounting detail, peaking with epic stasis in the cover of Chatham’s ‘Guitar Trio’.
Rolling Stone
 
 
“Intensely propulsive motorik blues, its muscularity and greased relentlessness is never less than exhilarating”
Uncut


"Circulating blood that's more delta than downtown ... a down-home stomper stretched on minimalism's rack until it becomes a hypnotic skeleton suitable for a night's totentanz on the town.  Deep, dense, and dangerously entrancing, it will take some damn impressive releases
in the next few months for February to not be high on my year's top ten.  Stellar work all around."
Dusted
 
 
"February is a blasting artifact of blues-drone dirge that bares the marks of a man who's spent a lifetime balancing these disparate influences. Kane's journey from the malevolent Swans to drummer behind the cerebral swells of Rhys Chatham's 100 electric guitar orchestra culminates here with blustery instrumental bliss. The randy riffs of the 12-minute opener "Curl" and the circular rhythms of "Pops" burst and bloom into rambunctious preambles loaded with subtly changing parts shrouded in voluptuous, groove-driven nods. The staccato strings in "Sis" rock the house down to the foundation with the cadence of drunken power tools. Traditional number "Motherless Child" unfolds with Morricone-esque majesty, and a rendition of Chatham's "Guitar Trio" injects a tried-and-true approach to blue-collar Americana with a progressive and exploratory splendor. In extracting the "awe shucks" sensibilities of the working man's music, February revives the dead language of the blues and transforms it into a shimmering, avant-garde barrel down Highway 61 with nothing but the riff behind the wheel."
Creative Loafing, Atlanta

 
“Jonathan Kane has co-founded the Swans, backed Rhys Chatham, and kept the beat for La Monte Young’s Forever Bad Blues Band; you can be sure that he knows a thing or three about hitting his drums hard, real hard, and holding a beat for a long, long time. That’s not all he does on February, but it’s certainly an essential ingredient. The construction of his three originals is simplicity incarnate; pick a familiar blues riff and hold it for a while, then change things one note at a time. Easy to imagine, hard to execute successfully, but Kane has the dynamic control to pull it off. Featured on guitar and bass as well as drums (engineer Igor Cubrilovic adds more guitar on three tracks), Kane demonstrates a rare command of orchestration; every instrument comes in right when it need to, says its part, then inches aside for another to make itself known. This skill is even more evident on a cover of ‘Motherless Child’ where the gradual introduction of distorted electric guitars on top of briskly strummed acoustics wrings new drama from that hoary old classic. The other cover, of Rhys Chatham’s ‘Guitar Trio’, is a grand summation of Kane’s aspirations. He’s slowed it down and replaced the originals Neu!-like groove with an unabashedly swaggering roadhouse beat, then woven acoustic slide licks into the baker’s dozen notes that cycle endlessly through the tune. The personal politics of American minimalism have long cried out for a barroom with sawdust on the floor where differences could be settled man to man; this record would be on the jukebox.”
Signal to Noise
 
 
“There’s a hallucinatory drone at the bottom of classic blues songs—Howlin’ Wolf’s “Moanin’ at Midnight” for instance—that’s not too far removed from the mind-changing repetition of contemporary experimental music. Jonathan Kane brings these threads together in his first solo album. February links the psychotropic repetition of blues to the intellectual rigor of avant-garde classical, playing simple riffs over and over again until minor shifts in pattern and tone take on reality-warping significance. It’s clear from the beginning that Kane’s drumming sensibility permeates the album. On 'Sis', bent guitar notes flitting in amongst a monster four-four beat feel celebratory. The drums are freer here, periodically exploding, briefly slipping the bonds of song structure then stepping back into pattern, and you realize that this is what you’ve been waiting for all along. For those willing to enter into these minimalist, blues-leaning landscapes, there’s a continual interplay between theme and variation, and a hallucinatory reward for active listening.”
Pop Matters
 
 
"Jonathan Kane was the driving force behind La Monte Young's Forever Bad Blues Band and a founding member of Swans, so he's well placed to tear down the fences that some people (mostly journalists) have been trying to rebuild between Art and Rock. But anyone listening for the
first time to "Curl", the opening track on February would have little problem filing it away in the Rock section. Unlike the motorik instrumental rock of Neu!, which is in consistently hard driving binary simple time, "Curl" is in compound quadruple --  it swings, and swings hard. In homage to (Rhys) Chatham, Kane covers his 1977 "Guitar Trio", but slows the tempo and switches from simple to compound, a quantum leap that reconfigures Chatham's sleek binary sports car into a heaving R&B juggernaut. "Sis" shifts cunningly from simple to compound about two third of the way through, by using what Elliott Carter would call "metric modulation" Meanwhile,it doesn't matter which shelf you put February on, because it really belongs in the CAR as the soundtrack to that long awaited road trip. Who cares what kind of music it is? It rocks."
Paris Transatlantic
 
 
"February is a drone-inspired record in a big way; massive walls of chugging Chatham/Branca-leaning dissonant single guitar chords lead the way through long, and at times bluesy workouts. ...There's a modern melding of blues tradition with Terry Riley-esque flights of lengthy
repetition, something that in fact even predates Riley by decades in classic fife-and-drum Mississippi hill music. That music is clearly a big inspiration to Kane, who channeled his mighty wallop birthed with the Swans into true grit snaredrum workouts in the Kropotkins, a group that actively visited spiritual Mississippi kin like the late great Otha Turner (and also featured ex-Velvets Moe Tucker, who knows a thing or two about repetition in percussion) ... Within minutes you're totally hypnotized. Highly recommended."
WFMU
 
 
"Raising blood from skin and metal... Tying simple blues motifs to the orchestrated guitar minimalism of Glenn Branca and [Rhys] Chatham, Kane manages to create pieces that are simultaneously meditative, but unashamedly rock. The closest reference points are Henry Flynt, whose hillbilly ragas conjure the same sense of the mystic from the earthly, and the late Mark Sandman’s Morphine, who shared with Kane a penchant for getting into the groove. “February” ends with a wondrous workout of Chatham’s “Guitar Trio”, adding an assured swagger to the original
piece, before slowly coming to the boil."
Foxy Digitalis
 

 
"A loud & proud collision of artilliary drumming and bluesy rock instrumentation. Opening with 'Curl', Kane has an adherence to strict rhythms and serialistic intent that borders on the Neu! for repetative cohesion, with a grand bass heavy stomp pummeled by all manner of swampy guitars and low-slung bass. At times veering close to contemporary post-rock (see 'Motherless Child'), Kane is an old-school type through and through; a stance which lends 'February' an urgent energy which is terribly infectious."
Boomkat
 

"What if the Velvet Underground were blues cowboys from hell? What if Stereolab drove motorcycles and pick-ups and played shady bars on the Texas border? ...Propulsive urban dirges for modern ghost towns."
Just for a Day

“Jonathan Kane is one wicked drummer. He has technique and shuffles are a plenty. What he does on February is simply jaw-dropping. Imagine a rockabilly twang, bluesy influenced wall of guitars (four guitars, one bass) playing the same riff over and over again with slight changes all along. Like an organic drone, it makes you wonder if one of the guitarists will shred some solo after 3 minutes but no, here lies the quality and perfection of this album. It is at the same time unpretentious and so well executed and unique that it stands on its on. It is on the edge of being Avant-Garde but still has so many roots in traditional twang rock that you wonder were to put it on you record shelf. Instrumental bliss.”
Sonicosity



“February, Kane’s debut for the prestigious Table of the Elements label, finds him channeling drawn-out minimalist styles into a hypnotic blues swagger. Imagine a time-weathered blues band getting downright arty without losing the down-home feel of their cherished Americana swagger. Kane’s drumming holds the intricately amassing patterns locked rigidly in line, supporting his bass and guitar work but never leading it or taking centre stage before it. February is a detailed and deliberate minimalist work that swings as well as it encircles itself.”
Exclaim
 
"A massively subtle psychedelic system... Here, even the slightest flux in rhythmic/melodic detail seems almost tectonic ... Ferocious."
The Wire
 
"Rollicking, hypnotic and majestic.  Once again, Table of the Elements defies gravity to bring out another fantastic release."
Slug
 
"ROCKS!  Great Southern-fried looped blues rock.  Like Steve Reich if all he listened to was Muddy Waters and Zeppelin. Enormously promising and eminently satisfying"
Dusted


“Kane takes minimalism to the crossroads, building a massive document to the continuing power of the blues.”
MusicWorks
 
 
“Longform tribal blues love”
!Earshot

 
"Blows of Genius... Splendid."
Ondarock
 

"Infinite blues."
Village Voice
 



'February' - BEST OF 2005
WFMU
CJSF – Vancouver BC
Gapers Block
Norman Records - UK
JazzCorner
Svenska Dagbladet – Sweden
Borderline – Germany
Comes With A Smile – London, UK
(K-RAA-K)3 – Belgium
Columbus Alive
!Earshot-Vancouver BC  
Hinah – Germany
Zulu Records – Vancouver BC