DIGITAL ANALOGUE (Newmarket) 8.5/10 Christopher Young has a gift for crafting charged atmospheres in which to improvise. This gift is especially prominent on this double album’s 20-minute centrepiece, the slow, dreamy Out of Time, which has minimal harmonic movement, instead using layers of post-Robert Fripp guitar played by guest Brendan…
Category: Album Reviews
URGENCY! (Kimnara) 8/10 Most people use language lazily, in pre-fabricated modules, whether speaking or writing. Musicians can also be snared, regurgitating pre-digested patterns, whether composing or improvising. Rare ones devise the actual language: its syntax, vocabulary and potential for expressing the new. This is what drummer Simon Barker does on…
PORTALIS (Orenda) 7.5/10 As Orenda Records’ catalogue expands, so does both the scope of its music and the significance of the Los Angeles-based label. This, the debut album by bassist/composer Zack Teran, interweaves jazzy threads with streams of electronica, bursts of rock and more. Groove and drama are often uneasy bedfellows,…