Guitarist-composer Yoshie Fruchter brings a punk sensibility to klezmer music on this audacious debut, which features music he’s dubbed “punkassjewjazz.” With violinist Jeremy Brown, drummer Kevin Zubek and Shanir Blumenkrantz on electric fuzz bass, Fruchter’s Pitom quartet affects a deranged-surf-band aesthetic on “Skin and Bones” and “Shikora,” while the more hard-edged, atonal vibe of “Go Go Golem” and “Minim” suggests Sonic Youth and Slayer jamming at a Purim party. The intense unisons on “The Robe of Priestly Proportions” recall Frank Zappa’s ensemble discipline and wah-inflected six-string abandon. Elsewhere, the guitarist incorporates touches of Sonny Sharrock’s shards-of-splintered-glass approach.
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