Search - Jim Black, Alasnoaxis :: Habyor

Thanks to Jim Black

Richard O'Carroll | Melbourne, Australia | 09/28/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"People will be talking about this music for a long time. Arguments will come and go as to whether this is jazz or rock or some hybrid yet to be labelled.

I don't think that matters.

This music sings with the very joy of creation. A sound that is common to all genres when the artists involved are speaking truly and without thought for markets or labels.

What we have on this CD is four musicians dedicated to the task of realizing the compositions of their leader, Jim Black...and we have a leader with the wisdom and faith in his band to allow them to extrapolate and improvise around, over and through his wonderful musical ideas. They create sound-scapes that are evocative, minimalist, dense, industrial, poetic, humorous and/or just plain beautiful...sometimes within seconds of one another.

Alasnoaxis are, I believe, that rare phenomenon in music...something new. They combine their collective musical experiences and create something immediately accessible and yet at the same time, exotic...foreign. Accessible because there are no barriers to this music other than the preconceptions you might bring to it. Foreign, as there are no four gentlemen at this time putting it down in this particular way...of course. This music has the `shock of the new' but is not self-consciously avant-garde... it seems to exist for the best reason of all...because it must.



I don't hear `Habyor' as better or worse than the two previous releases from Alasnoaxis. I hear a continuity of purpose in the three CDs so far. I wait for further releases impatiently.



Those with ears will listen and hear...those with a need to pigeon-hole might be in trouble.



Thanks to Jim Black.



P.S. - The packaging, production and recording quality are all first rate.

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