The Defenestration Unit

It's hard to preview a show by a group of musicians like the frequently expanding and/or contracting sextet that calls itself The Defenestration Unit. Were this band assigned that task, they'd likely shrug the whole thing off as missing the point.

Besides, they probably only have a slightly better idea of what's actually going to happen onstage than you do. As their name implies, the group is in the habit of willfully and often joyfully discarding everything that is usually said to define a "band" — they have no particular set-list, instrumentation, or sound, or even fixed membership.

Often reductively labeled as free-jazz, the group cartwheels freely through whatever sonic fields fit their fancy that night, though you might well detect the traces of a Sun Ra theme. So let's just try to leave them with that most general of descriptors: "improvisational music." And add that Defenestration Unit will stretch your sonicconsciousness.