Based in Amsterdam, this fire-breathing improvisational trio comprises bassist/guitarist Jasper Stadhouders, drummer Onno Govaert, and American-born saxophonist John Dikeman. The band plays a take-no-prisoners, high-energy brand of free jazz strongly influenced by the likes of Albert Ayler and Peter Brötzmann at their most intense (they also claim that their music includes elements of Delta blues, Japanese noise, and no wave). Cactus Truck self-released an eponymous CD-R in 2011 and followed that up with a 2012 cassette release (featuring Terrie Ex from the Ex) entitled Macho Sex; their first "official" album, Brand New for China!, arrived in March of 2012 on the Public Eyesore label. In late October through mid-December of that year, Cactus Truck stormed the United States with a massive 37-date tour that saw the trio tearing it up across the country, up the East Coast from Atlanta to Boston, across the Midwest and West, down the West Coast from Seattle to Los Angeles, and finally wending their way back east for three final dates in New York City. Selections from the tour (recorded at Squidco Records in Wilmington, Delaware with guest trombonist Jeb Bishop; Astro Black Records in Louisville, Kentucky; and the final show at JACK in N.Y.C. with the late Roy Campbell guesting on trumpet) were featured on the Live in USA album, released in March 2013 by the band's Tractata Records imprint in collaboration with the eh? label. In 2014 the explosive trio was back with the Not Two/Tractata release Seizures Palace, named after Jason LaFarge's Brooklyn studio where the album was tracked. As indicated by Sybren Renema in the album's liner notes, Cactus Truck recorded the album past midnight on December 12, 2012, immediately following the 36th gig of that year's U.S. tour, "after consuming enough coffee and whiskey to reboot the musicians' weary minds." ~ Dave Lynch