Jones / Skolnick / Grohowski / Motzer: PAKT

Recent internal polling serves to prove that most actively conscious homo sapiens are seriously seeking out a few more hours of headspace a day. With that comes the need to fill it with anything but blinks, tweets, notifications or the incessant slate of current events. And with that comes a soundtrack: equal measures invention, noise, humor, daring. With that in mind, MoonJune Records presents this twin-disc set from guitarists Alex Skolnick, Tim Motzer (who kindly handles electronics), drummer Kenny Grohowski and fretless bassist Percy Jones is just that.

Take the first letter from each first name and you have PAKT (a simple naming process by most human standards); add some Brooklyn real estate (in this case ShapeShifter Lab) and the need for communication despite the sick, travailing winds and the music becomes bold, intense. Seethes and mellows. Slurs, blurs, darts and dangles.

Recorded as a two-set livestream in the deadened days of August 2020, "Chapter One The Unsilence" and "Chapter Two The Sacred Ladder" follow the energy (and therefore the music) as it flows, swells, becomes apparent only to lose itself for something other. Guitars cluster, rhythms cross. "Cosmic Fire" comes at you with all the wallop of the early Red Hot Chili Peppers. "Emergence" is the stuff of dreams. "Over Strange Dreams" unfolds a series of imagistic geodesics. Open space calls and with that the innate freedom (and willingness) to shred the blueprint. As their collective CV testifies (mentioning Brian Eno, Brand X, John Medeski, Lonny Plaxico and Tony Levin just scratches the surface) PAKT follow their own law. Or make it up as they go along. Either way is thrilling.