The Transcendentalists

The Transcendentalists: Real Time Messengers

by Derek Taylor
January 7, 2003

The Trascendentalists wear their spiritualism on their collective sleeves. The ensemble’s name and songbook suggest easy fodder for naysayers and skeptics, but it’s in the straightforward emotion and honesty of their music that any tendencies toward listener cynicism are summarily abolished. Abbs accomplishes a mean feat on the opener by playing a bass ostinato and adding tuba flourishes simultaneously, juggling the two instruments like a circus strongman twirling barbells. The teeter-totter harmonic underpinning of the piece is often fleeting and ...