Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Jones / Skolnick / Grohowski / Motzer: PAKT

6

Jones / Skolnick / Grohowski / Motzer: PAKT

By

View read count
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.

Track Listing

Disc One: Emergence; Over Strange Land; The Mystery; Nigh Crossing; Brothers of Energy. Disc Two: Perserverance; The Sacred Ladder; Drifts and Alignments; Night Crossings; The Great Spirit; Departure Sanctuary; Cosmic Fire.

Personnel

PAKT
band / ensemble / orchestra
Tim Motzer
guitar

Album information

Title: PAKT | Year Released: 2021 | Record Label: MoonJune Records

Tags

Comments


PREVIOUS / NEXT




Support All About Jazz

Get the Jazz Near You newsletter All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who make it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.

Go Ad Free!

To maintain our platform while developing new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity, we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for as little as $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination vastly improves your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by making a donation today.

More

Tramonto
John Taylor
Ki
Natsuki Tamura / Satoko Fujii
Duality Pt: 02
Dom Franks' Strayhorn
The Sound of Raspberry
Tatsuya Yoshida / Martín Escalante

Popular

Old Home/New Home
The Brian Martin Big Band
My Ideal
Sam Dillon
Ecliptic
Shifa شفاء - Rachel Musson, Pat Thomas, Mark Sanders
Lado B Brazilian Project 2
Catina DeLuna & Otmaro Ruíz

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.

Install All About Jazz

iOS Instructions:

To install this app, follow these steps:

All About Jazz would like to send you notifications

Notifications include timely alerts to content of interest, such as articles, reviews, new features, and more. These can be configured in Settings.