Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Jim Black: Alasnoaxis
Jim Black: Alasnoaxis
Sverrisson’s pendulous bass figures tug and stretch at the fractured time signatures officiated by Black’s traps creating an undulating framework fixated on maximum elasticity. Speed switches from lyric melodicism to full-steam caustic blowing, sometimes in the temporal space of blink of an eye, juxtaposing the sounds of his tenor and clarinet expertly. Stoking the embers of the engine room Black’s coal-hued rhythms underscore it all with a rock-ribbed vitality. Tunes bleed into one another to the degree that track demarcations often become unhinged and the overall feel takes the shape of a loosely stitched suite. Several of the shorter pieces like “Poet Staggered” and the closing “angels and artiface” seem clipped of their momentum before having a chance to bloom. But the majority are given sufficient time to fully unfurl and expose a sonorous foliage of variegated hues. From the Pachinko funk of the frenetically-paced “Nion” to the Indian drones of “Icon” these four players chart a course riddled with impulsive spontaneity.
Mesmeric sheets of feedback radiate forth from Jensson’s electric strings in a manner that recalls the fretwork of Kevin Shields and the alt rock band My Bloody Valentine (reference the gradual eruptions of “Maybe” and the coruscating distortion of “Garden Frequency” for two fulminating examples). These marriages of rock-rooted emotional immediacy and freely improvised forms create a new and thrilling breed of Fusion. Welding calm and dissonance may be nothing revolutionary in free jazz, but the ways in which Black and company incorporate these seemingly diametric elements points to enticing new directions. Most intriguingly this auspicious release makes the probability of future Black-guided excursions a virtual certainty.
Track Listing
Mm/ Optical/ Maybe/ Ambusher/ Garden Frequency/ Poet Staggered/ backfloatpedal/ Icon/ Luxuriate/ Boombye/ Auk and Dromedary/ trace/ Nion/ Melize/ angels and aritiface.
Personnel
Jim Black
drumsJim Black- drums & percussion; Hilmar Jensson- electric guitar; Chris Speed- tenor saxophone & clarinet; Skuli Sverrisson- electric bass. Recorded: Feburary 17-18, 2000, NY.
Album information
Title: Alasnoaxis | Year Released: 2001 | Record Label: Winter & Winter
About Jim Black
Tags
PREVIOUS / NEXT
Become a Sustaining Member
Since 1995, All About Jazz has championed jazz as an art form and supported the musicians who create it. Over three decades, it has grown into one of the world's leading jazz resources, serving hundreds of thousands of readers, musicians, presenters and industry professionals each month.
Help Build the Future of All About Jazz
Your support helps us continue building All About Jazz for the next generation—expanding our editorial coverage, preserving jazz history, developing new community features and creating better ways to discover the music and the people behind it.
Become a sustaining member for as little as $20 per year and you'll immediately enjoy an ad-free experience along with access to subscriber features and future articles for a full year.
Together, we're not simply sustaining All About Jazz—we're building its future. Thank you for being part of the journey.
