AL FRASER / SAM LEAMY / NEIL JOHNSTONE - Panthalassa
Rattle: RAT0090
Al Fraser: nga taongo puoro; Sam Leamy: guitar, effects; Neil Johnstone: soundscape, synthesizers, sample manipulation, synthstrom deluge; Phil Boniface: double bass; Erika Grant: ocean harp; Jake Church: guitar; Ariana Tikao: vocals; Pete Deane: guitar
Recorded by Al Fraser at The Chicken Coop
While the title might be shared with a Miles Davis recording (albeit the remixes that Bill Laswell made of later Miles sessions), the musical content is somewhat different. Having said that, there is (across both recordings) a shared emphasis on ‘finding’ sounds in a stew of electronic effects to create versions of ambient fusion. Here, Johnstone appears to be sculpting musical textures from the exhaust of the other players as well as providing space for them to pour their sounds. Fraser plays nga taongo puoro, the family of musical instruments from Maori culture – ranging from wind instruments to percussion instruments that are hit or twirled (on a previous release on Rattle, reviewed here https://www.jazzviews.net/tania-giannouli--rob-thorne--steve-garden---rewa.html, Rob Thorne also plays nga taongo puoro, albeit in a different context).
Panthalassa was the mass of water surrounding the land-mass of Pangaea which subsequently split to form continents. The opening track, in the best tradition of film-scores, provides a montage of sounds that suggest we are travelling back in time – to the ‘Paleozoic dawn’, which is the tracks title. Whereas Laswell was using the name metaphorically, on this set the music invokes all manner of nautical analogies; what might be eerie fog-horns sound against spectral background (on ‘Bone white moon’). Later, we have titles like ‘Rorqual’ (track 3), ‘Bathysphere’ (track 5), ‘Ghost shark’ (track 8), and ‘Whale time’ (track 11), before piece closes with ‘Mesozoic extinction’. On the central track, ‘Hinatore’, Tikao’s vocals are submerged beneath the shifting electronic – her lyrics (in Te Reo Maori) have an English tradition (mentioning ‘moon white bone’ in a nod to track 2). The English translation closes with ‘connections fly apart / slowly coalescing moments / Forming memory / A cloud of swarming points of luminosity.’ And these words provide a fitting description for the experience of listening to the music.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
Rattle: RAT0090
Al Fraser: nga taongo puoro; Sam Leamy: guitar, effects; Neil Johnstone: soundscape, synthesizers, sample manipulation, synthstrom deluge; Phil Boniface: double bass; Erika Grant: ocean harp; Jake Church: guitar; Ariana Tikao: vocals; Pete Deane: guitar
Recorded by Al Fraser at The Chicken Coop
While the title might be shared with a Miles Davis recording (albeit the remixes that Bill Laswell made of later Miles sessions), the musical content is somewhat different. Having said that, there is (across both recordings) a shared emphasis on ‘finding’ sounds in a stew of electronic effects to create versions of ambient fusion. Here, Johnstone appears to be sculpting musical textures from the exhaust of the other players as well as providing space for them to pour their sounds. Fraser plays nga taongo puoro, the family of musical instruments from Maori culture – ranging from wind instruments to percussion instruments that are hit or twirled (on a previous release on Rattle, reviewed here https://www.jazzviews.net/tania-giannouli--rob-thorne--steve-garden---rewa.html, Rob Thorne also plays nga taongo puoro, albeit in a different context).
Panthalassa was the mass of water surrounding the land-mass of Pangaea which subsequently split to form continents. The opening track, in the best tradition of film-scores, provides a montage of sounds that suggest we are travelling back in time – to the ‘Paleozoic dawn’, which is the tracks title. Whereas Laswell was using the name metaphorically, on this set the music invokes all manner of nautical analogies; what might be eerie fog-horns sound against spectral background (on ‘Bone white moon’). Later, we have titles like ‘Rorqual’ (track 3), ‘Bathysphere’ (track 5), ‘Ghost shark’ (track 8), and ‘Whale time’ (track 11), before piece closes with ‘Mesozoic extinction’. On the central track, ‘Hinatore’, Tikao’s vocals are submerged beneath the shifting electronic – her lyrics (in Te Reo Maori) have an English tradition (mentioning ‘moon white bone’ in a nod to track 2). The English translation closes with ‘connections fly apart / slowly coalescing moments / Forming memory / A cloud of swarming points of luminosity.’ And these words provide a fitting description for the experience of listening to the music.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
