THE DARK PATTERN (Earshift) 9/10 Virtually all art is built on conventions. Only the brave or foolish strip them away, because of the danger only a vacuum will remain. On this deeply mysterious double-album Phil Slater applies some of the language of jazz, while often inverting accepted customs of groove,…
Category: Album Reviews – Archive
ET HAN MOT OVERKLASSEN (Hubro) 8/10 They suck you in, first – not exactly with sunny daffodils, but certainly they hold off gashing you with sonic thorns. Initially the soundscapes are dark, brooding and slightly dangerous, like spotting labyrinthine climbing roses in the dark, just before you were about to…
THE BALANCE (Gearbox/Planet) 8/10 The journey continues. It began in South Africa, where Abdullah Ibrahim (then Dollar Brand) participated in the country’s first jazz album by black musicians. But the tyranny of apartheid drove him away, ultimately to the US, where Duke Ellington championed the pianist. In the 1970s he…