Horn Fanfare
Jan and Dean trumpet bursts meet electronic noise on a
cinema screen swirling with the backdrop of outer space. Sudden highly pitched
synth sounds dart across this landscape like morse code messages returning from
decade’s old send offs, now with alien enhancements. And that’s just the two
opening tracks Hazy Days and The View
from Here.
But it isn’t weird. There’s the jazz fusion of Nir Felder’s
guitar defining itself clearly in the mix on the second track; in title song Gnosis, a philosophising Jiddu
Krishnamurti is sampled at the start and within, the trumpet, flute [Jamie
Baum] and synth sounds placidly cool in their empathetic thinking to present
Haskins’ musical knowledge in a remarkably practical way: playing it.
The mix of synthesised/programmed sounds and the
conventional is brilliant throughout, and as tracks segue into one another the
shifts across and within make for a seamless but lively journey. Equal Night and Circle Theory are a dynamic pairing, the former with Henry Hey’s
Rhodes and Wurlitzer electric pianos dancing with Haskins’ analog EVI and programming
in such a tonally rich pitch – scorching too at four minutes in – and yet there’s
a soothing overall wash; the latter merged into its horn ripples and synth
spurts over a funky rhythm. Although there are noisy peaks [which are far-out]
it is essentially a beautiful coupling.
Lost Worlds has
Joshua Roseman contributing trombone that is an echo of a growl to start
beneath the synth and piano, Daniel Freedman’s percussion laying Asian rhythms,
and Haskins’ trumpet seemingly looped; Artificial
Scarcity has the horn further effected.
The penultimate track Plucky
has ethnic-rhythmic contributions from Daniel Freedman again, and harpist
Brandee Younger provides an instrument not only pretty in its cascading sounds
but supplies a source of the song-title’s punning. Closer alt_x is a punchy rhythmic bed above which the horn and synth
reverb and echo in blasts of great volume until settling down to some fine keys
to let the bass [Todd Sickafoose] and percussion have a moment, slowly, then rising
to greet the horn peels again and Hey’s keyboards. Nice one. Very nice album.
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