Karlton E Hester: Quantum Elders Ballet

Scholar and multi-instrumentalist Karlton E Hester returns to follow up 2015's Trans-Cultural Music (Hesteria Records & Publishing) with Quantum Elders Ball, an artistic commentary on the interconnected relationship between the dimensions, the self and art. Not only does the album serve as a fresh approach to concepts established in Trans-Cultural Musicism but for those who have followed Hester's career, it is an elaboration on his original concept of "musicism," the idea that innovative forms of art can be created and executed in the performance environment.

Trans-Cultural Musicism alums pianist Motoko Honda and bassist David Smith join Hester and pipa player Yunxiang Gao for this free-flowing endeavor. Though the personnel list is only four members long, the ensemble has a voracious, large sound that compliments the sweeping themes developed throughout the project. This album is fearless in the use of spacing. The pipa instrumentation in hauntingly beautiful and Hester's morphing synthesizer compliments the silence.

Quantum Elders Ballet seems to be the only natural follow-up to Trans-Cultural Musicism; it is developed, structured, and executed in a way that breathes new life into an ever-evolving understanding. While Trans-Cultural Music moved in a sidewinding zigzag, Quantum Elders Ballet develops on a slope. It is the reconciliation of the concepts developed in the first album which served as a commentary on the push-pull factors of the natural and spiritual universes. The new album is more of an illustration of that development. Overall the album and its creators seek to undermine typified, static notions of time and space.