Reviews of Progressive Rock, Jazz Rock, Hard Rock, and Stories from beyond.
Monday, June 29, 2020
MevsMyself - Mictlan
Tuesday, June 23, 2020
Gary Husband & Markus Reuter - Music of our Times
The story goes like this, Leonardo Pavkovic booked a block
of studio time in Tokyo after Stick Men were stranded by finishing off a
performance in Nagoya at Blue Note. So what he did was to construct a plan “B”
idea for both Gary and Markus before their return flight. And it was all
recorded in one night.
Similar to what John Coltrane did with A Love Supreme being recorded for one night at Van Gelder Studios
in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey on December 9th, 1964, Music of our Times carries that torch,
but with a strength of surreal beauty that is finally brought to life. With the
usage of Fazioli F212 Grand Piano, Husband creates some of these darker passages
with an echoing hallway effect.
For Markus, he follows Gary by becoming like a painter of
sorts as they’re following in the footsteps of both Jackson Pollock and Julian
Schnabel. They’re looking through their exhibitions between both original and
plate paintings that are brought to life as if they’re walking through the
stories inside those portrayals that are unleashed for the first time.
Some of the pieces including the intensive title-track,
channel the crossovers between Keith Jarrett’s playing, meets the soundscapes
of Klaus Schulze’s Irrlicht while
delving into the dooming structures of Manuel Gottsching’s playing on Ash Ra
Tempel’s Traummaschine. They work
well together to create these mournful scenarios. On White Horses (For Allan) you can feel the spirit of the late great
Allan Holdsworth in this arrangement.
Reuter channels his visual styles to make his own take of
the SynthAxe while Husband follows him by going through the loops and walking
towards some cavernous reverb effect as Markus’ instruments cries out to the
gods by making sure that Allan is watching up from above and understanding that
he’s got their backs, no matter what will happen next.
Colour of Sorrow
at first sounds like the bass riff intro on Justin Chancellor’s Schism from Tool’s Lateralus. But it becomes different the way Husband goes into the
abyss while walking down the stairs to see this glowing light approaching the
duo at the right exact moment for them to fly off into the distance.
Now this was a big challenge for me that MoonJune Records have unleashed in 2020. It took me about six to eight listens. Mind you, I had a few albums that I listened that were very challenging at times. And my ears had no idea on whether or not this album was either going to sink or swim.
But for
me, Music of our Times is the perfect
swimming exercise to listen from start to finish. MoonJune Records have never
disappointed me with some of the greatest releases they’ve unleashed. And who
knows what the label will think of next. But for Husband and Reuter, in the words
of Steve Winwood, “Who knows what tomorrow may bring?”