Footage of Alex Cunningham, Seth Andrew Davis, Damon Smith and Weasel Walter improvising at Charlotte Street Foundation continues to fill me with joy nine months after I posted the brief clip to Instagram. Branches Choke, fifty minutes of gleeful entropy recorded in Kansas City the day after that performance, is similarly provocative. The cover art evokes the anarchic punk band Crass while the album possesses the ear-splitting racket of glass bottles shattering in an empty recycling bin. The Kansas City guitarist Davis sounds like he’s torturing a Slinky toy. The St. Louis tandem of bassist Smith and fiddler Cunninghim occasionally synchronize their agonized groaning. The thumps and rattles produced by New York percussionist Weasel Walter are funny even without the riotous visuals. The outrageous Branches Choke is astounding.