By Nick Metzger
Here we have a new vinyl-only EP from saxophonist Isaiah Collier with drummer Tim Regis and producer Sonny Daze in collaboration with the Vinyl Factory. The session was recorded direct to tape in January of this year at Devon Turnbulls’s (OJAS) Hi-Fi Listening Room Dream No. 1 at 180 studios in London. The duo met Turnbull through Daze circa 2021, setting off a series of concerts in Turnbull’s listening rooms in Brooklyn, San Francisco, Chelsie, and finally London, where this session was recorded. Collier and Regis first met up in 2020 during practice sessions in NYC during the pandemic and have developed a fantastic rapport in the time since - and it shows on this scorcher. Collier has been releasing some incredible music over the past 5 years both with his quartet the Chosen Few and with a diverse set of players and projects both young and old. In Regis he finds an incredible collaborator who speaks the same language and works with the same energy. You can probably consider this a trio recording with Sonny Daze playing Upsetter on the mixing board - his accents leave a psychedelic stamp, elevating the recording beyond that of a simple sax-drums duo and helping to achieve sounds and textures not available with a more limited palette.
The album is split into 3 pieces across 2 sides and the duo does a great job of keeping things moving along for the entirety. I could listen to Collier solo all day long. He has an effortless musicality and is great at throwing in little hits of melody amongst the skronk - it absolutely spills out of him and is impressive to see live. Tim Regis is a brilliant percussionist who I really look forward to hearing more from, this being my introduction to his work. He lays down a very busy, propulsive sound - heavy on the kick drum which is how I like it - but more than that he has a tremendous sense of swing that maintains a sense of form, during even his most abstract passages. Add to all of this the interspersed sonic manipulations of Daze, provisioning octave effects and swirling Pollock-esque lashings of Echoplex feedback that multiply the sonic density. He applies what sounds like an MXR Blue Box to Collier’s horn on the lead-in of the second track “2nd Genesis” which may be a first, at least outside of Borbetomagus, and it’s pretty effective for building tension. On the final track it sounds like they use live looping in conjunction with the octave effect, making it sound like a big band is playing the riff, that kick drum just absolutely walloping on the last track. For all the swirling psychedelia and experimentalism throughout, the album is relatively concise, wrapping in the span of 26 minutes. An excellent EP of OUT! spiritual jazz.
This album, along with The Ancients bookend Collier’s year - one with two of the old masters, and one with a dynamic newcomer - and that is the music in a nutshell. Always looking for inspiration from the past, yet continually pushing forward into the future. This one is pretty special, not to be missed!
Out September 24th and limited to 500 copies from The Vinyl Factory :
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