Search - Hiromi's Sonicbloom(Hiromi Uehara) :: Time Control

Stimulates the Mind and the Spirit

PScooter63 | Pelham, AL USA | 04/28/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Hiromi's star continues to rise with this album. This is one sizzling quartet, with all the chops to make her compositions breathe fire, and yet all the passion to keep it genuinely human and warm. Let's run down the track list:



The opening of "Time Difference" seems at first to harken back to Rick Wakeman's prototypic "Six Wives of Henry VIII". But the pot is stirred very early on, with lots of slithering, microtonal dialogue between Hiromi and guitarist Fiuczynski. On balance, a wonderfully virtuoso opening for the album.



"Time Out" is a rollicking up-tempo shuffle with an infectious sense of fun, even as it revels in its dissonances. Some great solo work by Fiuczynski here.



"Time Travel" is a complex episodic work. The feeling of floating exhilaration at the beginning (nice solo work from Grey) gives way to a caffeinated drum riff whose challenge is soon taken up by the rest of the group with zeal. The highlights throughout this composition are too numerous to list, but my personal favorite is Hiromi's distortion-laced Rhodes solo (both a rarity and a delight).



The wistful "Deep Into the Night" brings us down to earth with what begins as a soulful ballad, but eventually slips into "power ballad" territory. There is drama here, but it is never overblown. Lovely work all around, though there was a moment or two I wish might have been mixed with as much care as the artists were pouring into it.



"Real Clock vs. Body Clock = Jet Lag" returns the sense of edgy fun to the proceedings. For some reason, this composition seems like the kindred spirit of Bela Fleck's "Couch Potato" to me, what with all the mercurial moods swings and broad humor.



"Time and Space" is a loping (and occasionally lurching) minimalist groove in search of a melody. Though it veers dangerously close to filler territory, there are some tasty solos that redeem the track's diffidence.



"Time Control, Or Controlled By Time" begins as a furious tarantella, but alternates moods several times during its eight-and-a-half minutes. The centerpiece is a remarkable solo from drummer Valihora, capped off with another excellent piano solo excursion.



"Time Flies" returns to the sense of the ethereal, introduced by a keening whistle-like solo that seems suspended in time alongside lush piano chords. Eventually the track reveals a ballad-rock mood whose chorus takes me back to, of all things, vintage early-80's Yellowjackets (my musical equivalent of comfort food, in other words). Even after eight minutes, I didn't want this track to end.



Finally, "Time's Up" closes the book on this gem of an album in a manner totally appropriate to the proceedings.



This was my very first Hiromi purchase... though I have also purchased "Brain" and "Spiral" since then, I keep coming back to "Time Control". I expect it to stay in my CD changer well beyond her next release (which is due pretty soon now)."

Strong playing all around

Music maven | Amherst, MA | 10/25/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"What an unusual CD this is. If this were an LP and you randomly dropped the needle on it, you might well think you had a smooth jazz piano trio (the nadir of music), a funk-fusion blowout, a progressive rock complexity fest, or a free jazz exploration. To make matters more interesting, these things all might happen within one song. I could wish for more deep feeling in the soloing, rather than intellectual gymnastics, but the spin-the-radio-dial stylistic approach makes its own kind of entertainment. And the complexity and technical challenge of the playing on several songs is astonishing--the sort of thing that can keep you coming back again and again just to try and figure out how they're doing it without tangling their fingers into knots.



My one real complaint is the recording, which sucks every ounce of life out of the music. Being a Telarc disc, they make much of the equipment used to record it, and that might lead you to think this is a purist recording. But there is no natural resonance to any instrument or any sense of the space they recorded in. The acoustics are more dead than anything I've heard in years, and the instruments all sound like miniatures stuffed with cotton. I know there's a bass in this band because it says so in the CD booklet, but you'd never know from listening to the recording. The bass and bass drum are completely missing in action (though, oddly, the synthesizer bass is plenty full), the drums sound like toys, the cymbals have been compressed into oblivion, and the guitar sounds like a kazoo. The piano fares better, but the whole thing would be much more exciting and meaningful if the instruments were allowed to breath and interact--and interaction is the heart of music, particularly jazz. Listen to some of the YouTube videos of Hiromi and her band, and you'll see what I mean. The sound on those is in some ways technically less clean and accurate than this, but there is real excitement to the sound, real power in the playing, and that's choked off here."