Customer Reviews

2005

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

. . . could this possibly work?

Yes. And brilliantly.

Only from the mind of the Fuzemeister, he of the monster fretless guitar chops and sometime leader of Screaming Headless Torsos, could such insanity come. Only from truly gifted players could such eclecticism be pulled off.

Kif, an Arabic word, in U.S. slang has come to signify marajuana. In Arabic, it simply means pleasure. I'm thinking the latter meaning applies here.

The weird pleasures of this astounding disc achieve seventh heaven on "Chinese Go Go," an Oriental Hawaiian Reggae that must be heard to be believed. Featuring some truly demented string-bending courtesy of Fuze, various and sundry Sadownick percussive bizarreness, Gene Lake's frenetic drumming, and Rufus Cappadocia's revelatory cello playing, the soundscape confounds even as it reveals heretofore unheard aural messages.

Cappadocia makes quite an impression throughout. He's got this faux multiphonic thing happening as well as an entire cool drone that come across as entirely apt in this rarified setting. Fuze himself achieves perhaps a world record of differentiated guitar voicings.

Certainly this was the record Dave Fiuczynski was destined to make. Highest possible recommendation.

It's long been known to his fans that Dave "Fuze" Fiuczynski, in addition to the many hats he wears as the bandleader of Screaming Headless Torsos and a sometime faculty member of the Berklee School of Music in Boston, is one of the most blindingly innovative and criminally unsung guitar heroes of the last decade, but this release will present a different side of him from the punk/funk/fusion/metal/jazz insanity that peoples his other projects. Like countless musicians before him, the Fuze has turned his muse to the East...

...by way of Mars, apparently. He teams with electric cellist Rufus Cappadocia (along with fellow Torsos Danny Sadownick and Gene Lake) for 10 exotic, exhilirating, experimental, and downright weird tracks, all of them imbued with non-Western flavors. Composing with scales, modes, and quarter-tone tunings reminiscient of Egyptian, Arabic, North African, South Asian/Indian, and even Chinese idioms, the Fuze presents some of the most stridently lyrical and evocative work of his career, highlighting his mastery of the fretless guitar--an instrument on which past recordings have hinted at his ability, but featured here as a mainstay instrument to imitate sitar, oud, and even koto/shamisen(?). Some of these exotic grooves wouldn't sound out of place in a bazaar in Marrakech or Cairo...highlights include the sinister undulations of Mektoub, the joyful, danceable syncopation and bouncy riffs of Phrygianade and the hilariously funny R&B-groove-meets-Chinese-restaurant shuffle of Chinese Go-go. Not to be missed; Fuze is one of a kind and this latest release shows him pushing the envelope even further than before.

I'm simply in awe. Words cannot describe the emotions that this music is bringing out of me. It's like nothing I have ever heard before. Now that very well be my ignorance, but it's amazing music nonetheless. I think the other reviewer described the music pretty well, I'm just here to tell you that you need this album right now. I honestly cannot believe Fuze is not more well known, at least by guitarists . . . he's such a great musician (not to mention the other musicians on this album, all of them do a great job). The drum'n'bass grooves are so tasty I'm going to explode.

I'm still in awe.

Fuse pulols it out and waves it around, in company with the cellist. Not all tracks to the same standard but a must have for nfusion fanatics

This is probably a great album to work on a car to, or to jam out to... I thought that this was an album featuring Rufus Cappadocia, but he has few solos and his cello is lost amongst the guitars.
For those of us who love Rufus' cello, this is not the album of his to add to a collection. Preview it first.

Always leaves me surprised and never fails to lift my mood and suck me into a trance. Amazing display of creativity and art.