Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Chimaira: There Is No Alternative

41

Chimaira: There Is No Alternative

By

View read count
Chimaira: There Is No Alternative
Eminent audio engineer Walter Quintus wields his magic on this pristinely recorded effort. The wide dynamic range of this LP offers the listener amazing detail and clarity, where you can feel every pluck of a bass string and gentle cymbal hit. From a musical stance, this superior European quartet covers all the bases within a hybrid, progressive jazz and experimental paradigm.

The band has quite a few weapons in its arsenal, where many pieces are crafted on a surfeit of ideas or propositions that transpire at a nanosecond's notice. With peppery discourses and seemingly innumerable contrasts executed by saxophonist Philipp Gropper and pianist John Schroder, the brisk and fluent chain of events, augmented by knotty unison phrasings and textural rhythmic mechanisms are only part of the big picture. They also engage in hyperactive improv exchanges and swarming crescendos, where sub-plots and micro-motifs are resonantly stitched into multihued and at times, ferocious theme-building extravaganzas. Moreover, various works feature Oliver Potratz' supple bowed bass musings and Schroder's sprawling notes via linear progressions and concise reverse-engineering forays. Yet the ensemble does tone it down in spots.

On "For F." Gropper and Potratz sound like two comrades engaging in a heated argument, leading to drummer Alex Huber's polyrhythmic blowouts. And "Feathers," is a brusque etude, sparked by the pianist's cyclical chord patterns. Indeed, it's a piece erected upon several moving parts. But the rhythm section funks it up during the bubbly "Bon Voyage," cascaded by the soloists' spirited and fragmented conversations amid a few teaser spots, and a simmering groove that eventually rockets skyward. Hence, the album monikerThere Is No Alternative, could inadvertently suggest that you may need to look far and beyond to find many recent avant jazz albums that accomplish so much goodness in a relatively short slice of time.

Track Listing

No Salvation; Faces; Aussicht; For F.; Feathers; Bon Voyage; To Be Continued.

Personnel

Philipp Gropper: saxophones; John Schroder: piano; Oliver Potratz: bass; Alex Huber: drums.

Album information

Title: There Is No Alternative | Year Released: 2015 | Record Label: WER WideEarRecords

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.

Near

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.