“The Chicago-born, Austin-based eclectician is a master at stretching the boundaries of jazz, both avant-garde and not – check out the Chord’s most recent album, 2019’s ‘Harder On the Outside’ to corroborate – and his distinctive take on improvisational harmonic structure has been sorely missed.”
Mike Shanley, ‘Shanley on Music’ 02/10/22
“The first ‘Beats by Balto!’…forged a connection between serious grooves and free improvisation. The new album takes things even further. …The end result has an organic life to it that bites a lot harder than most other hybrids…it becomes hard to separate the live from the loop. …What’s most exciting about the album is the way the crew repeatedly adds different surprises to the tracks, never relying on a set formula. …Free jazz skronk is not what gets people onto the dancefloor, but maybe it’s time has come. The horn melodies on Beats by Balto! V2 deliver ear candy, and the beats are pretty irresistible. Once that wins people over, some wailing solos can just make the kids gyrate even more.”
Chris Robinson, ‘Outside-Inside-Out’ 01/23/22
That’s a Wrap on 2021 (aka best of the year)
Jon Lundbom/Bryan Murray, Beats by Balto! Vol. 2
Anthony Dean-Harris, ‘PostGenre’ 11/19/21
‘Anthony Dean-Harris’ Favorite Albums of 2021’
Jazz
22. Jon Lundbom & Bryan Murray, “Beats by Balto! Vol. 2” (Chant Records)
‘PostGenre’ 12/14/21
‘PostGenre’s Best of 2021’
Honorable Mention: Jon Lundbom & Bryan Murray – “Beats by Balto! Vol. 2” (Chant)
Kevin Curtin, ‘Austin Chronicle’ 12/17/21
‘In My World of Disorder, the Top 100 Austin Records of 2021’
70. Bryan Murray and Jon Lundbom, “Beats by Balto! Vol. 2”
Chris Robinson, ‘Point of Departure’ #77, December 2021
“A set of ten switchblade-sharp cuts that demonstrate that left-leaning jazz and hip hop cannot just coexist, but can thrive when brought together. …The recipe is clear: reimagining highlights from Big Five Chord’s deep catalog in a way that both stays true to Lundbom’s aesthetic and finds a new way to realize it, all while transcending the logistical limitations posed by the pandemic. …While much of the music on ‘Beats By Balto Vol. 2’ is snarling, dark, and ominous (i.e., incredibly in tune with the moment), its creation and success points to the promise that we will not only find a way to live with and create through the pandemic, but that once we come out on the other side, our musical and cultural lives will be the better for it.”
Mark Corroto, ‘All About Jazz’ 11/14/21
“The spine-tingling essence of this music confirms what happens to hyper creative artists when they cannot tour and perform in a conventional sense. …Where Vol.1 recontextualized Lundbom’s Big Five Chord catalog cutting and pasting (think Teo Macero meets John Oswald), this outing drills deeper with a richer more complicated and an even denser cluster of sounds. Unlike the generic ‘jazz remix,’ this is more a walking/talking Frankenstein assemblage. Millevoi and Lundbom’s guitars weave patches together and Irabagon’s solos are rocketed into the cauldron, as beats and anomalous samples are massaged and manipulated. It’s mayhem, but the good kind of mayhem.”
Michael Toland, ‘Austin Chronicle’ 11/12/21
“Murray, aka Balto!, deconstructs Lundbom songs with electronic manipulations and grooving beats, then hands them back to the axeman to recompose new music over the top. …If this is fusion, it’s fusion from a planet on which an alien spacecraft crash landed, getting their chaotic chocolate debris in the original denizens’ peaceful peanut butter. To make this mesmerizing mishmash even better, the artists donate proceeds to the Jazz Foundation of America’s COVID-19 Relief Fund.”
Ken Waxman, ‘JazzWord’ 11/08/21
“All 10 tracks stomp with Balto Exclamationpoint’s almost non-stop rhythms. …Linearity as well as looseness is maintained, with other musical options suggested as the album evolves…the beats seem posed to fall out-of-tune or cease completely bur always manage to clasp onto horizontal movement. …Attaining its objectives without negating more sophisticated sources, ‘Beats By Balto! Vol.2’ can’t be beat.”