Featured Artist: The Remote Viewers

CD Title: Control Room

Year: 2008

Record Label: Independent

Style: Free Jazz / Avante Garde

Review:

Get them while they last as they say.  Since this five-CD set is a limited numbered edition of only 200 pressings.  With five releases for Leo Records, followed by the duo’s 2003 Indie album titled Paris Transatlantic where they integrated originals with a wildly imaginative Madonna cover, this multi-CD gala marks the artists seventh project. 

The discs signify a comprehensive glimpse into the musicians’ artful capabilities to include asymmetrical injections of free jazz, minimalism, avant-garde progressive rock and more.  Essentially, these stylizations fall at the mercy of the band’s genre-bending ways, as they manage to craft a signature group sound, featuring saxophonists David Petts and Adrian Northover’s rather offbeat, programmatic sax choruses.  Part-time group member Louise Petts contributes on sax, electronics and vocals on one track, yet the saxophonists garner assistance from guest artists throughout the majority of the program.

On disc-one, the instrumentalists pursue a minimalist-like musical vista with free-form expression and haunting EFX on the extended piece titled “October Rush.”  Here, we enjoy a study in contrasts, spanning bass n’ drums motifs and Northover’s sinewy sax parts amid quiet ethereal passages.  Otherwise, the various ensembles navigate through a barrage of disparate time signatures while propagating innumerable changes in dynamics and pitch.  They morph a string of alternating viewpoints into the grand schema.

Disc-three provides a glimpse into the core band’s stamp of authenticity.  Along with saxophonists, Sue Lynch and Caroline Kraabel consummating the woodwind quartet atop John Edwards’ bass, the music is engineered upon oddly syncopated lines and compelling abstractions.  Then on disc-four, Louise Petts’ angelic and wistful vocals reinforce the overall sax and electronics-based ambient dreamscape, offset by swooshing sounds and harrowing backdrops.

Northover closers out the festivities on disc-five with seven solo soprano saxophone performances and often abides by a layered approach while adhering to free-form concepts and wily explorations.  As he occasionally uses sound-processing and overlays to reinvent the ongoing sequence of events.  With less than two-hundred copies available, it would be foolhardy for new music, free-jazz, or avant advocates to let this gem slip away. 

Record Label Website: http://www.theremoteviewers.com

Reviewed by: Glenn Astarita

Click here for printer-friendly version of review.

Send this page to a friend.