Customer Reviews

III

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

 

 

With more loops and cuts and general production value than the first two albums, this third effort by Grassy Knoll has the insistent hard lazy beats of an excellent dub machine with overlaid fuzz guitar, screaming coleman-esque saxophone, and insectoid droning sounds. I imagine this as the soundtrack to a Terry Gilliam production of The Metamorphasis, but at the same time, it's guaranteed to get your head and feet moving like the best of the Wu-Tang efforts.

An incredible fusion of sampling and live instruments with a very heavy groove awareness. The thinking man's acid jazz/rock fusion, it will light a fuse in your brain.

This is a subliminal album that gets intot he cracks in your head and resonates there, strings and synth and live drums creating a music space sometimes reminiscent of Radiohead ("every third thought"), sometimes of instrumental Nine Inch Nails - but with more live talent ("the violent misery of everything lost").

If you do a lot of "Hey, check this out, I love this sound" to your friends and family, this is an album for you. A true audiophile's dream, exploring the spaces in between the jazz and rock and electronica genres, all led by Bob Green's moody, melancholic guitar riffs.

Fusion has had a bad name for a long time. This was largely deserved, but fortunately we no longer have to listen to Chick Corea's Return to Forever playing songs about fairies, the Stanley Clarke band impersonating Carl Lewis in the 100 metres, or Weather Report compromising all the marvellous things that Wayne Shorter had done with Miles and as a solo artist (and remember, this was the cream of the fusion crop). So now, finally, perhaps the world is safe for fusion. Part of the reason may be the state of music in general - in the early seventies, the contemporaries of the Jazz artists gone Rock were Yes and ELP - nowadays, it's Tortoise and Tricky. The Grassy Knoll are closer to the latter two stars of today's alternative scene than to fusion of old, and we are much the better for it. They are even closer to Red Snapper - play this album back to back with Prince Blimey, and you'll see the connection. With a wide range of tonalities from the eclectic instrumentation, this is a very nice set of jazzy, funky, ambient instrumentals.

The leader of the band is Bob Green, who is the sample wizard as well as providing keyboards and guitar - but unlike the majority of the Acid Jazz/Trip Hop brigade who cut and paste existing Jazz music into new forms, but don't actually play Jazz, The Grassy Knoll has a deep lineup of superb musicians. They feature a live drummer, several horn players, and real violin and cello - not synthesized strings. This makes for a very rich and varied sound, as different instruments take the lead on different tracks. The opener, "a beaten dog beneath the hail", gets things off on a very Ornette/Prime Time footing, which is a continued theme throughout the album. However, this is no one trick pony. The music is varied, with string led ambient pieces, such as "of all possible worlds ... pt. II" providing a contrast to the raging harmolodics of "six to four to three", or the lovely flute of "the violent misery of everything lost". "112 gr! eene street", which features Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore on guitar, sounds like Tortoise plays Portishead.

I was very pleased with this CD. I really like "Paul has an emotional uncle" and "Of all possible worlds...Pt II". I like electronica and respect the process involved in creating it, but for those who think it takes no skill, The Grassy Knoll is a good compromise. This CD combines live instruments with funky electronic stuff, and it ultimately arranged electronically. The only problem I had with this CD was that too many songs lack a good structure for presentation of the beat, but that's only according to my preference, which is in the general electronica area. Good CD!

I bought both this and the first Grassy Knoll album around the same time and had problems totally embracing both. Why was hard to nail, but I wonder if I felt the problem was too much groove, not enough personality.

But for the first time in ten years I replayed the two Grassy Knoll albums I own back to back and III is by far better.

The concept is basically the same: create simple grooves and fill them with instrumental textures. But III adds more of these than the first album. Sonic Youth's Thurstan Moore inserts his dentist drill guitar deep within the music. (Moore along with Marc Ribot are the only two guitar players who make their guitars sound so good when they make their guitars sound like my father's power tools.) There are also violin, bass clarinet, sax, all types of instruments.

No one really solos here, at least not for any length. This can work with a small group, but on III, it works more due to the groups size. The more players, the more these players can be baked deep, like a musical lasagna you have to keep peeling each layer of to find the taste. The off-kilter meters here draw you in further.

There are times, still, listening to this I wish Grassy Knoll had a singer, or a distinct solo player, or that the tracks had more defined starts and finishes. If you want to know what this music would sound like with such, check out Tricky's Angels With Dirty Faces: strikingly similar ideas and production but created as trip hop. Grassy Knoll can seem a lot of cut and no paste--good ideas that are under developed.

But the interaction here is excellent, and the more you listen, the more you hear. I can overlook many perceived shortcomings. I can adjust to a lot. I can get very used to this.

The back of the insert reads, "for those who have lost". This album takes a more sinister and sad tone than previous albums. Bob's programming electronica takes a more prominent role here, yet the tracks leave enough freedom to improvise. There are some surprising trance and ambient tracks (like "Safe") that prove there is so much more to what this band is capable of than previously revealed. On the first listen, I thought this was a rather long album. Now I'm really enjoying it. This album is also good driving music. Once again, the production quality is top-rate.

Thurston Moore plays guitar on a few tracks, but I couldn't discern the difference.