Customer Reviews

Interstellar Space Revisited

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Let's face it, stamp a famous dead musicians name on a cd then base the cd on one of his most well-known works and you have a built-in marketing promotion for your cd. Well, don't even start to think that this is a haphazard "tribute album" that's more about money than music.

I can't say that I agreed with the "official review" that Amazon has posted though. Nels Cline is not approximating Coltrane's phrasing or sound at all (and I do not mean that badly!). This isn't a guitarist and a drummer just recreating something that a saxophonist and a drummer did 33 years ago. This is a guitarist and a drummer taking that 33-year-old album and using it's themes only as a launching pad for their own brand of interstellar improvisations. Coltrane's INTERSTELLAR SPACE and this cd share in the same "spirit" of giving into the musical unknown, but musically-stylistically speaking, these are two very different pieces of music, and both should be in the collection of anyone who loves creative improvisation. This would have terrified and astonished Coltrane even at his most out music of '66 and '67. Nels is beautiful and insane.

This album is an amazing remake of the John Coltrane classic Interstellar Space, but honestly the album is more than just a simple re-make, it amazingly sends Coltrane's music into an entire new direction of creativity. Interstellar Space features only a drummer and a guitarist pooring their hearts out into a recreation of the genious that is John Coltrane. The free jazz drums are played quickly and skillfully, while the guitarist plays a wide range of screechy and spacey sounds, and you soon realize after about a minute of the first track that these guys are some seriously awesome musicians. Buy this album if you want something different, and great.

It's important to recognize that Coltrane was a spiritual player, and many people who approach his music nonspiritually (especially the later works) completely miss this point. Nels Cline and Greg Bendian do not. This is not an empty shredfest but almost a rechanneling of Trane for a new century, done by two players who absolutely know what they're doing and absolutely hit the mark. This CD basically made me believe the electric guitar could be a valid instrument again.

Don't look for stock riffs and runs here! Most jazz guitarists sound alike with a Wes Montgomery or Jim Hall thing going on. Its refreshing to hear a guitarist who obviously has the chops cultivate "sounds" from the Guitar (Frisell, Jeb Bishop, Brandon Ross are a few others I can think of). Cline doesn't just appoximate Coltrane's tenor sound. He uses it as a jumping off point - his playing is about the Guitar.

Bendian also smokes here. The whole suite is awesome, not a weak moment. I found their version of Lonnie's Lament with Bendian on vibes to be just as strong, if not as "free" as the Interstellar Space tunes.

Just Get It!

I hate to admit that I was not familiar with these guys until this past week. I accidentally stumbled across this CD. It is amazing!!! Be forwarned if you are an occasional Coltrane fan. This is total free form improvisation......But this isn't just two guys "revisiting" Coltrane....this isn't just music....this is expressions from the infinite soul............................Beautiful.

This is simply an amazing recording. I'm not even going to try to describe it or justify my opinion. But I listen to a lot of music from a lot of different genres, and this is one of the CDs I've come back to more than any other. It's mind-bogglingly good. Some days I just can't even believe how good it is. It's so good.

Listen to this side by side with the Coltrane/Ali duets for an added treat. Bendian is breathtakingly fluid on the drums. This is music you must feel, not just hear.

As strange as it may seem, I've been searching for this sound for I don't know how long. It's as though it existed in my unconscious mind, or perhaps in the limited area in the Akashic Records to which I have any access. Perhaps there exists a Jungian archetype that I've been unwittingly attuned to. To finally hear it realized in the real world is nothing short of revelatory. I first heard what folks call "free jazz" through local musicians, and I was intrigued. Subsequent performance experiences turned me on to the full power of this expressive music, music that strives to transcend any and all limitations. Nels Cline (and by extension, I imagine, Mr. Coltrane as well) succeeds.

As an amateur musician myself, one with a fairly developed ear and moderate, innate sense of musicality, it's obvious that the more you understand music itself, and the more your mind is open to all forms of musical experience, the better equipped you are to "hear" this properly. I would argue that a disco purist may not like it, but anyone who enjoys progressive rock, metal, electronica or passion in general can get into it. If you don't like skronky music, you won't like this recording. However, for fans of skronk, this is a monumental work. My familiarity with the specific Coltrane recording on which it is based in very limited, so I can't speak to comparisons or contrasts.

I don't know much about Nels Cline, but he's obviously an ingenious musician. He possesses the fluid technique of Joe Satriani or Steve Vai, but this music is light years beyond the clichéd rock of those two fellows. I don't know if he ever listened to much heavy metal, but the influence sounds like it's there.

I'm also amazed at the level of novelty found on this recording. You know, regardless of the players, six or seven pieces comprised of nothing but shifting, tricky, cathartic percussion and overdriven guitar duets could get repetitive after some time, but this doesn't. Perhaps that's because the source materials comes from one of the 20th century's great musical genuises.

Check out Jim Black's first "AlasNoAxis" recording if this item appeals to you. It's similar in the sense that it's like free jazz with metal/rock overtones.