New York-based folk group/ethnomusicology experiment Hazmat Modine draw from a wide array of influences and time periods. Performing music from the ’20s through the early ’60s, including genres such as swing, klezmer, hokum jug band, blues, rocksteady, and more, the dual harmonica-fronted band has earned a reputation as fearless world music alchemists. Debut Bahamut came out in 2006, landing a spot in Billboard’s Top Blues Albums category and numerous international charts. In 2011, the band will release its sophomore CD Cicada. Like that mysterious insect, who as a nymph lives in the earth surrounded by roots and then comes forth to sing, the music created by these eight accomplished and inventive musicians is earthy and at one with its origins, but suggestive of mysterious worlds beyond.
A pointer to Hazmat’s methodology can be found in the band’s configuration. Schuman’s guitar, diatonic harmonica and intensely earthy vocals set the tone. A solid battery of sounds—tuba, chromatic harmonica, trumpet, flugelhorn, trombone, tenor and baritone saxes, piccolo and duduk, mandocello and steel guitar—explores the textural and melodic outer limits of Hazmat’s meticulously woven compositions, while guitars and drums lock down a groove and provide sonic spicing.
