Aquifer

Mark Dresser | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (February 19, 2002)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Cryptogramophone
• ASIN: B00005YD4C
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #511,613 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A playful, mercurial disc, September 8, 2004

By 

Toe Surgeon (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Aquifer (Audio CD)

While I wouldn't say it's a "fun" record, Mark Dresser's Aquifer is certainly more playful and less claustrophobic than his duo disc, Sonomondo, with Frances-Marie Uitti. Out of nowhere, "hyperpiano" player Denman Maroney breaks into a stride piano solo in the middle of early highlight "Digestivo," and there's a bouncy, woozy vibe to "Threaded/Spin X" that suggests the trio (composed of Dresser, Maroney and flautist Mathias Ziegler) is coming down from a nitrous oxide high.

All three musicians are sonic alchemists, conjuring new sounds from their instruments and experimenting with their mixture. Dresser somehow evokes a swarm of bees in the opening section of the album centerpiece "Sonomatopoeia" while Maroney scrapes the inside of his prepared piano and Ziegler's flute becomes a gust of wind. The aquatic theme of the album is recalled on the opener "FLBP," as the combo moans and creaks like an old, leaky boat slowly sinking into the ocean.

There's a lot of spacious improv on this disc, but the composed pieces are pretty awesome, too. The pointillistic "Pulse Field" is more or less a dance piece, albeit totally perverted and thoroughly syncopated. And on "FLAC," Maroney pulls off the insanely difficult task of doubling Dresser's brainy line with his left hand and doubling Ziegler's equally brainy but completely unrelated line with his right hand. Simultaneously. The same trick that Brad Mehldau uses, without being abetted by the strictures of tonality...wow.

"Aquifer" can be listened to as compelling background music, but there is a whole lot to listen to. Buy this, pick up the 2000 disc "Sonomondo" on Cryptogramophone, then enroll in UC San Diego, where Dresser is replacing Bertram Turetzky as resident master bass teacher.