Monday, November 22

Spiritual Dimensions preliminary

So I'm one and a half times through this album, and still deciding what to think.

On the one hand - when they get going (both bands) they are powerful and persuasively energetic. Check out the Golden Quartet version of 'South Central L.A. Kulture' for a great example of the band searing on a post-electric Miles sort of tune, which breaks down, then breaks up for no loss of effect.
For the Organic band, 'Angela Davis' is a driving statement where the 4 guitar format gets to unleash its inherent chaos to great effect.

On the other hand - Vijay Iyer's avant-gardisms sound a little trite to me at times. I don't think he completely lives up to the role. But where he's allowed flashes of tonality he demonstrates the same power heard on his solo albums.
The 4 guitar band works on the loud songs where chaos is rewarded, but every slow section quickly loses its erection and turns to mush. It seems like they're avoiding each other so much that no music happens - and the prog-rock-y sections just annoy me to no end because they're devoid of the dirtiness and grit that's the saving characteristic of Miles-ean funk, just like much of modern jazz (and indeed most of prog-rock. I mean you, Thom Yorke.)


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