What to make of this record?
Jan P. Dennis | Monument, CO USA | 11/14/2003
(5 out of 5 stars)
"First of all, I have to cordially disagree with my good friend and fellow Amazon jazz reviewer, Nate Dorward, for whom I have nothing but the highest regard. Unlike him, I'm thoroughly taken by this disc's marvelous, mysterious, menacing soundscape. A brooding, ominous Presence hangs over everything, strikingly unveiled in the very first notes of the first cut and carried throughout the entire record. This could almost be the soundtrack to some Post-Modern techno interpretation of Wuthering Heights. The combination of wild string voicings, dire bass rumblings, Matthew Shipp's crazed synth stylings, and Guillermo Brown's frenetic drumming creates a wild, primitive vibe that just knocks me out. Deep, portentous, even threatening sonorities characterize this music. Really, this it: Maniacal string sawing, great crashing cymbals, dangerous-sounding bass voicings from the inimitable William Parker. I don't even care if Ware doesn't play on half the cuts. His conceptual spoor is all over this disc. Matt Maneri, a violist I've had a hard time warming up to, has found his ideal recording context. Teamed with Daniel Bernard Rouman on violin, they hammerlock the listener into submission with inspired string washes of the grimmest timbres. "Threads," 13 minutes of sheer sonic melancholy, is the shibboleth here. If you can get on board with its dour vibe, you're more than halfway home. To me, this is like some kind of irretrievably downer Barber Adagio, glorious, like the Barber, in its singularity of concept and plodding execution. I can see how this music would seem disastrous to some ears. But I just don't agree."Carousel of Lightness," sadly ironic in its melancholic stateliness, is the high point for me. Featuring gloriously severe playing from Maneri on viola buttressed by Shipp's near-ambient Korg snyth stylings and inspired percussive fills from Brown, it evokes profound feelings of Sehnsuct, of secret longing, of the sad condition of human contingency and decay."Weave, Pt 2," a Ware-Brown duet, closes things out magnificently. Ware here seems the inheritor of the Pharoah Sanders tonal championships. Such richness! Such depth! Such saxophonic history lightly summed up!To me, this is music imbued with the highest order of feeling, marvelously conceived and brilliantly pulled off."
Ware hooks it up
Jan P. Dennis | 10/27/2003
(4 out of 5 stars)
"This isn't my favorite David S Ware record by any stretch of the imagination. This record is a total departure from his previous quartet dates, but what it does is continues to outline David S Ware's superior harmonic sensibility. Many will be turned off because he doesn't play on every track. But when he does play, his overwhelming sense of melody and harmony is showcased. Don't expect the fire from his previous records. Instead you get a taste of what makes music great in the first place."
Track Listings (6) - Disc #1