Dave Russell: Paradox

John W. Patterson

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Published: September 1, 2001

Being an adherent to the trippy-factor and instrumental binges of artists like Ozric Tentacles, Gong, Steve Hillage, Hawkwind, and such psych/ space-rockers inevitably leads one to Dave Russell. You never heard of him? Well, now you have.

Russell is essentially a one-man band, tour de force with a little help from his friends. He writes, produces, and performs most everything on this release. Set up your rhythms, get a bevy of synths cranking out the psychedelic scapes, and riff your heart out with fav guitar, soloing, pausing, and letting your brain float away, trak to trak. You have the Russell vibe going. And overall he does a strong show. His axe voicings dance in the halls of Hillage, Ozrics, Floyd, and even that Wavestar feel.

On this Russell effort, he also leans heavy towards techno, electro-boogie-trance, with a nod to Eat Static and Hillage’s drum machine phase. If you love synth layered upon synth reaching ever widening complexity of sequencing — Russell will delight. If however you need a bit more guitar riffage to break the synth beat-fest mantra, some traks may cause listening interest to wane.

Russell has done a good job on this synthy, psych-rock release and the snippets of guitar were impressive as well but too sparse for this ear. Best traks to zip to first are “Silica Extract”, the 9:20 monster “Pulsar”, and “Synthesis”.

Cyberhome: http://www.dnarecords.cwc.net

Record Label: D.N.A. Records
Style: Fusion/Progressive Rock