Guitarist Marc Ribot's stunning attack - coming across as cries of distress, as it were - holds the listener in a constant state of alarm. His guitar-playing is by turns supple, raw and rugged. Sound collages of musical fragments varying from polyrhythmic post-bop, Cuba, psychedelic surf-rock, 'vintage punk' and Zorns Naked City to Faith No More and 'Looney Tunes' melodies. In 'Really the Blues', Ribot pays homage to the Mighty Mezz and to Black America's 'birth of tragedy'. Wielding a Fender Jaguar guitar, and liable to wild, emotional gesturing, he challenges fate. The starting-point is Chicago anno 1955, full of midnight soul jazz on local radio, teeming with anecdotes about 'muggle' and 'vipers'. The final destination is uncertain, the possibilities of misinterpretation infinite. Simon Vinkenoog describes it as follows: "From the American ports, from Black Africa and from the Middle East came travellers and their stories, as well as musicians singing in praise of weed. Cab Calloway had a repertoire of 'reefer songs', Mezz Mezzrow opened with his 'Really the Blues', a world behind jazz, and Norman Mailer wrote his famous essay 'The White Negro'. In this, he presents the hipster, the white negro, the American existentialist with his jive, marihuana and post-atomic consciousness, no longer scared by anyone". In an analogy of Blixa Bargeld's adorating of Mezzrow, Ribot refreshes us with unpolished 'mezzy' sounds during a fascinating 'journey into the blues sound'.