Shiver -
'Night School'
New Jazz and Improvised Music Recordings - NEWJAiM8 *****
On many occasions I have heard artists take a melody or just
an idea and gradually de-construct it; Shiver's new album 'Night School' takes
that concept and reverses it, starting with the furthest limits of
de-construction and - over the space of 53 minutes - working its way to the
melody in a process described by guitarist Chris Sharkey as akin to 'watching a
building burn down in reverse'. And at times it is like listening to the
musical equivalent of a conflagration.
The piece starts out with spare sounding electronically
modified notes and chords which slowly evolve and, by the 9 minute mark,
gradually begin to coalesce into something akin to a burning building. By 12
minutes the tone has changed again with electronic shimmers interspersed with
clicks and squawks and embellished with phased percussive beats.
And so the evolution continues into soaring glissandos until
- just before the half way point - the seeds of a melody begin to appear,
slowly joined by a loose rhythm and these gradually merge into a recognisable
structure which continually develops until the fully fledged melody appears
around five minutes from the end of the piece.
The textural variations in Night School are
beautifully nuanced and as a whole this is an extraordinary work and in places
it conjures up memories of the early live guitar/tape experiments of Brian Eno
and Robert Fripp - no bad thing in my opinion - and continues the natural
progression of the trio's blend of jazz, rock and electronica developed over
their previous four releases.
Is it jazz? No.
Is it brilliant? DEFINITELY!
Andy Champion - bass guitar
Joost Hendrickx - drums, percussion
https://chrissharkey.bandcamp.com/album/night-school
.jpg)
No comments:
Post a Comment