Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Spring Hill Jack: Treader

118

Spring Hill Jack: Treader

By

View read count
Spring Hill Jack: Treader
I’ll argue that it is not a stretch to include electronic music into the jazz world. Like all creative endeavors, the DJ, as improviser, chooses his instrument, and makes something new. Spring Hill Jack, masters of drum‘n’bass, release of 68 Million Shades... (Island 1996) caught the attention of jazzbos with their use of strings, hornlines, and electronics. Thereafter free jazz guitarist Derek Bailey admitted to practicing while D’n’B played in the background. His recording Guitar, Drums ‘n’ Bass (Avant 1996) is a must-own for improvisational music and Bailey fans. SHJ’s return on Treader continues the beats, but with a bit more distortion and noise around the edges. The drumming on “More Stuff No One Saw” tends toward found objects more than programmed beats, perhaps a throwback to The Art Of Noise’s "Close (To the Edit)." Horn lines abound, as do guitar licks. These guys are jazz listeners. Just as Miles reconfigured Tin Pan Alley, Coxon and Wales rethink dance music. Their versions of two Roger and Hammerstein classics highlight the improviser as interpreter. John Coltrane deconstructed “My Favorite Things,” so does SHJ. Their version, complete with vinyl groove scratch and sampled pipe organ terrorized by guitar distortion, sounds as if it is the soundtrack material to German surrealist cinema. What jazz fans despise about smooth jazz, the predictable construction of songs, and the easy listening drum machines, is not existent here. SHJ mixes the unexpected instead of the obvious. Fans of Bill Laswell’s projects will dig this disc, as will listeners of the early electronic pioneers, Steve Reich, Jon Hassell, and Brian Eno.

Track List:Is; Winter; Blackwater; Treader; Eyepa; More Stuff No One Saw; Outerlude; Toledo; Pipe; 1st Place For La Monte Young; My Favorite Things; Climb Ev’ry Mountain.

Personnel

John Coxon

Album information

Title: Treader | Year Released: 2000 | Record Label: Thirsty Ear Recordings

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.