When it comes to punk-jazz hybrids, the obvious and best example that comes to mind is Naked City. However, I wouldn't make this comparison to California's Cime too hastily. Not because I don't think the latter isn't of the same caliber or quality but due, in my opinion, to Cime representing an entirely different approach to the concept at its core- for starters, I don't think Naked City ever bore their souls on any record like Cime does on The Cime Interdisciplinary Music Ensemble (despite what you might think based on their name). The lyrics on Cime's six track LP (and before you say to yourself, "Six tracks? Is that really an LP?," note that the full runtime is 56 minutes in length), are delivered in such a raw and unfiltered manner that you'd swear they were peeled from vocalist Monty Cime's spirit like loose pieces of birch bark, before combusting on the heft of their breath like a burnt offering. The declining state of the American polity- spiritually, psychologically, morally, and artistically- is raised like the rifles of a firing squad whose imminent volley- daily indignities, constant scams, the raising of false idols, and general hostility to group's self-evident queerness- are reconciled by the band as inevitable, even if unjust, and acknowledged in light of faith in the fact that a broken body does not make a broken spirit. What's remarkable about the Cime Ensemble on this record, is not necessarily how they articulate their pain, but rather the joy that is expressed in the face of such destructive reverberations- a facet that unequivocally qualifies them as unique amongst punk-jazz hybrids, is that the focal points of dissonance and despair are communicated topically, while the real flesh of the compositions- drawing from traditions of Latin, fusion, lounge, and even some classically baroque genera of the jazz form- commit to a jubilee of transformative triumph, recasting the strife they feel into a bountiful current of ebullience. In rising to the challenges of this era with such elation, the group proves that you can only be brought as low as you yourself allow your spirit to be corrupted by the fallen state of your surroundings.