Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Yuganaut: Sharks
Yuganaut: Sharks
BySimilarly, on "Fade to Frenzy," a kind of ironically backsliding visual feast which sounds like the expressionistic world of Dr Cagliariwhose footage was being played backwardsstill sounds as thogh the track is moving ever onward. Abbs is a virtuosic musician, extending from the entire family of stringed instruments to some brass and woodwinds. Here he is heard kicking up a storm on tuba and that haunting instrument of the Australian outback, the didgeridoo. Also on bass and on cello ("Lost in the Field" and other tracks) Abbs holds notes long and hard, plying them with overtones that intensify their color and make for a wonderfully vivid palette of sound.
Rush is more of an experimentalist. As a musician, he does not seem rooted in any instrument, although he seems drawn to all things keyboarda fact borne out by his penchant for bringing toys to the setbut all is soon forgotten when Rush picks up his trombone and bleats plaintively behind Mann's brassy interlude on "Lost in the Field," Abbs' mournful cello notwithstanding.
Mann is the most colorful musician of the trio, his percussion work the glue that binds much of the Sharks' music.. His ability to awaken vast palettes of colorrolling easily on snare drum or dropping dramatically placed bombs on his bass drum while sniping away at the bevy of cymbalsis a thing of rare beauty. "See Saw," "Local Motion" and "Vger" are outstanding examples of his fine sense of rhythm and melody, enrobed in a rhythm all its own.
Although the album rocks excitingly from track to track, the crowning moments come on the ultimate track, "Again and Sweetly," a sonic gem of sweeping expanse. While sounding utterly new, the musicians manage to improvise around myriad familiar songs that appear and disappear throughout; an agglomeration of sound that makes Sharks memorable long after the music dies.
Track Listing
Breakthrough/Zhu; Fade to Frenzy; Landfill/Sharks; Lost in the Field/See Saw; Local Motive; Vger; Wrenchwork; Again, and Sweetly.
Personnel
Stephen Rush: Rhodes, Moog, trombone, toys; Tom Abbs: bass, cello, violin, tuba, didgeridoo; Geoff Mann: drums, percussion, trumpet.
Album information
Title: Sharks | Year Released: 2010 | Record Label: Engine Studios
< Previous
Emerson, Lake & Palmer: Pictures At A...
Next >
Tin Can Trust