by Don Snowden Vinny Golia was revisiting the quintet lineup during the period Razor was recorded, with old friends in puckish trombonist Michael Vlatkovich and electro-ambient-mutant gitarzan Nels Cline as his front-line foils here. It's not a throwback to his more jazz-based improvising of the '80s, but probably ranks as the most satisfying and listener-friendly small group album Golia released in the mid-'90s. It takes about four minutes for the musicians to resolve themselves around Golia's sopranino sax harmonics on the opening "Not Used," but they do with whoops from Vlatkovich, limber and liquid Cline lines, the attentive bass of Joel Hamilton, and Billy Mintz looking for the more unusual spots to make every drum lick count. The collective improv actually suffers from the players being so geared to jumping off and reacting to any new motif. "Blues for the Fat Man" starts with Cline moving through straight blues licks and mutant Captain Beefheart sounds mixed with an occasional John Cipollina Quicksilver quaver before shifting into a more abstract chamber mode. "When I First Met Luc Duprey" is excellent, organically unfolding as bass clarinet bumps up against trombone; a ruminative, sans effects Cline solo; and a fine section showcasing Golia's bass clarinet command with some arco commentary from Hamilton. The upbeat "Custodial Services" opens with a strong bass solo before Golia's maximalist soprano flurries take off over really strong rhythm section support -- Cline reels him in and they hand it off to a muted Vlatkovich in duet with Mintz. The dense theme of "Obstacle" is almost totally sonic, full of atmospheric floating fragments that require attentive listening on the musician's apart. They're up to the task and it's a nice, quick jump transition to the lumbering bass sax on "In a Suzuki Shop," closer to the lurching behemoth terrain of Golia's Large Ensemble. Cline's solo resolves into a boiler plant rhythm to set up Mintz (who makes so little mark you have to wonder if his drums weren't recorded well) before "For Julius...(the Splinter Intro)" closes with Golia finding some pretty indigenous-sounding peace on Latvian clay flute. Golia is going for the soprano/bass tone split among his arsenal of reeds here, and the shifts between high-pitched note flurries and rounded low tones are both effective and quite enjoyable. There's constant probing and stretching in his playing -- like most of Vinny Golia's '90s output, this is challenging music -- but Razor is also quite varied and a good disc for taking that plunge.