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Chris Gestrin / Ben Monder / Dylan van der Schyff: The Distance
ByThe opening "Ferns, with Monder's spacious intro of fade-in quartal chords, kicks into "Treacle, a fast-paced note-fest of incisive legatos and descending scalar staircases, followed by "#47, with the tampered timbres of Gestrin's piano evoking the hammerings, clankings, and nail-in-the-pail sound effects of a construction site, later segueing into Chopin-esque romantic ruminations.
"Dark Engine, a duet between Monder and van der Schyff, evinces the guitarist's multifarious tonal machinations: tapped ultra-harmonics, fuzz-busting distortion, sweep-picked and pile-hammered arpeggios, and power-fifth double-stops. His solo finally shoots into the strato-caster-sphere. Gestrin then enters with a mellow tone, adding texture and context to Monder's chord melodies with rippled arpeggios of his own.
The pianist's papered strings sound sitarish on "View from the Road, now droning like an Indian tanpura, now accelerating like duple-beating tabla drums in the gat section of a raga. After "Extrinsic with Monder's distorted exhortations and Gestrin's ambling pianocomes "The Distance, a masterful composition in the tradition of modernists such as Richie Bierach and Steve Swallow; the coup de grace of the set, the track features adventurous harmonicism and introverted excursions from both guitarist and pianist.
The classical romanticism of "Voice in the Night in which Gestrin's teardrop tones and hands-on hammering are complemented by van der Schyff's compressed cymbalic explosions, press rolls, and turbulent tom-tomsis capped off by the closing "Second Approximation, featuring Monder's eruptive finger-tap-dancing and fluid fretboard frenetics.
The Distance is an impressiveand impressionisticset. In spite of minimal compositional structure, this free-form free-for-all finds kindred jazzers in sync and in sympathetic simpatico with each other.
Track Listing
Ferns; Treacle; #47; Dark Engine; Treant; View from the Road; Extrinsic; The Distance; Voice in the Night; Second Approximation.
Personnel
Chris Gestrin
pianoDylan van der Schyff: drums, percussion; Chris Gestrin: piano, prepared piano, bells; Ben Monder: electric guitar.
Album information
Title: The Distance | Year Released: 2006 | Record Label: Songlines Recordings
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