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Monday, July 25, 2011

Starlicker - Double Demon (Delmark, 2011) ****

By Stef

I just took off cornettist Rob Mazurek's "Calma Gente" from the "Album Of The Month" messages on the left, and here we find him back with Jason Adasiewicz on vibes and John Herndon on drums. The approach is totally different again, and it must be said that Mazurek's creativity knows no bounds.

The trio started with composed material, with clear - and often memorable - themes, that lays a kind of overarching roof over the music, rather than a foundation, under which they improvise. And the latter are not of the lengthy expressive kinds, but a kind of common sound that the three musicians try to build together. Mazurek's cornet is the real theme-bearer, with Herndon adding incredible power, energy and more rock-influenced beats, with Adasiewicz being responsible for the more subtle - or subdued is maybe a better word and jazzy references.

The end result is exceptional, in that the trio creates a very dense sound, something that you would expect from a bigger band, rather than from just three acoustic instruments. A dense, warm sound. Weird in structure as you can expect, with repetitive patterns and sometimes totally unexpected rhythm and tempo changes that the trio take seamlessly.

And although it is a strong album, Mazurek has composed better themes and produced more gripping music, with the Exploding Star Orchestra still being the easiest to recommend.


Buy from Instantjazz.

© stef

1 comments:

joesh said...

Hi Stef

Did you listen to this on vinyl or CD? If so are all the tracks on the LP (that are on the CD)?

Best - Joe