QUINSIN NACHOFF'S FLUX - Path Of Totality
Whirlwind WR4733
David Binney - C melody & alto sax; Quinsin Nachoff - tenor & soprano sax; Matt Mitchell - piano, keyboards; Kenny Wolleson - drums; Nate Wood - drums;
with Jason Barnsley - theatre organ; Mark Duggan - marimba, vibes, percussion; Carl Maraghi - percussion; Dan Urness, Matt Holman - trumpets; Ryan Keberle - trombones; Alan Ferber - trombones; David Travers Smith - synths; Orlando Hernandez - tap dancing
No-one could accuse Mr Nachoff of a lack of ambition; this mighty work is spread over two CDs, with three tracks clocking in at over twelve minutes, replete with weighty titles like ‘Orbital Resonances’ and a host of diverse musical influences on show. Title the title track starts off with multiple simultaneous time signatures and stabs of altered chords, but things get lot more accessible thanks to the unerring melodicism of the soloing from the excellent David Binney. Nachoff has an attractively foggy tone on tenor, but his role as a soloist is almost sidelined by the sheer intricacy and breadth of his compositions. Binney, Wolleson and Nate Wood are all stars in their own right, exploring an area somewhere between jazz, fusion and progressive rock, and Mitchell is part of Rudresh Marathappa’s similarly genre-busting outfit, so all involved have the chops, energy and vision to sustain Nachoff’s sprawling works.
The lack of a bass player gives proceedings an intriguingly rootless, airy feel, as though anything could happen next - an extended interlude from a tap dancer, for instance, comes as no surprise by the time we’ve worked our way deep into disc two. The two drummers’ thunderous post-rock backbeats set the pace for many of the tunes, but there’s plenty of room for extended textural explorations as on the gamelan-like ‘Toy Piano Meditations’ and the vintage-synth-heavy ‘Splatter’. The whole is like an overflowing cornucopia of musical excitement, with enough challenging ideas to sustain half a dozen lesser works, though perhaps too many to digest at one sitting.
Reviewed by Eddie Myer
Whirlwind WR4733
David Binney - C melody & alto sax; Quinsin Nachoff - tenor & soprano sax; Matt Mitchell - piano, keyboards; Kenny Wolleson - drums; Nate Wood - drums;
with Jason Barnsley - theatre organ; Mark Duggan - marimba, vibes, percussion; Carl Maraghi - percussion; Dan Urness, Matt Holman - trumpets; Ryan Keberle - trombones; Alan Ferber - trombones; David Travers Smith - synths; Orlando Hernandez - tap dancing
No-one could accuse Mr Nachoff of a lack of ambition; this mighty work is spread over two CDs, with three tracks clocking in at over twelve minutes, replete with weighty titles like ‘Orbital Resonances’ and a host of diverse musical influences on show. Title the title track starts off with multiple simultaneous time signatures and stabs of altered chords, but things get lot more accessible thanks to the unerring melodicism of the soloing from the excellent David Binney. Nachoff has an attractively foggy tone on tenor, but his role as a soloist is almost sidelined by the sheer intricacy and breadth of his compositions. Binney, Wolleson and Nate Wood are all stars in their own right, exploring an area somewhere between jazz, fusion and progressive rock, and Mitchell is part of Rudresh Marathappa’s similarly genre-busting outfit, so all involved have the chops, energy and vision to sustain Nachoff’s sprawling works.
The lack of a bass player gives proceedings an intriguingly rootless, airy feel, as though anything could happen next - an extended interlude from a tap dancer, for instance, comes as no surprise by the time we’ve worked our way deep into disc two. The two drummers’ thunderous post-rock backbeats set the pace for many of the tunes, but there’s plenty of room for extended textural explorations as on the gamelan-like ‘Toy Piano Meditations’ and the vintage-synth-heavy ‘Splatter’. The whole is like an overflowing cornucopia of musical excitement, with enough challenging ideas to sustain half a dozen lesser works, though perhaps too many to digest at one sitting.
Reviewed by Eddie Myer
