Customer Reviews

Mylab

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

 

 

I did not know what to expect when I bought this, but I knew with the cast involved it had to be good. It's not good, it's great! Wayne Horvitz and Tucker Martine assembled some of the finest musicians around including: Bill Frisell, Danny Barnes, Bobby Previtte, Skerik, Eyvand Kang, Keith Lowe, Robin Holcomb and more. The music ranges from accesible groove to challenging avant garde. The music is as diverse as the group of musicians involved with the project--jazz, pop, rock, electronica, dub, world music--it all gets cooked up in the lab and it all works. My hat is off to Horvitz & Martine--a project of this nature can often come off disjointed, but Mylab is a grand acheivment. NPR did a great feature on this record and has played the music quite a bit recently. Also worth a mention is the label, Terminus Records--they are producing some mighty fine music--check em' out...

Is it possible to be too eclectic? Some (notably a reviewer in a prominent mainstream jazz magazine) have thought so, accusing Wayne Horvitz and Tucker Martine, masterminds behind this aural madness, of cleverness without soul.

I beg to differ. In these postmodern times, eclecticism is generally regarded as a virtue. And when it's in the hands of production geniuses such as Martine and Horvitz, one shouldn't be too quick with the clever-but-lacking-soul label.

Me, I'm entirely taken by these guys' wacky weirdness.

The vibe here is somewhere between Garage a Trois's Emphasizer and Sex Mob, with a bit of the Intercontinentals, Joel Harrison's Free Country, and Josh Roseman thrown in. What's not to like about that? Add maybe a dash of Jerry Granelli and you get the picture.

To those who diss this disc because it's mannered without soul, I say, lighten up. Get a life. Open up your ears. Hey, it's just music, not religion.

Yes, it took me about a dozen listens to catch the vibe. But once I did, I was blown away. I for one am thrilled with its wild austerity, its edgy effulgence, its western orientalism, its beguiling simplicity, its cool mixture of country blooze and urban jungle.

And I think you will be too. 4 and 1/2 stars.

Mylab is a sort of electronica jazz. It isn't quite a jazz album, because the focus isn't on improvisation or soloing. Rather the songs are for the purpose of the song (sort of like some of the recent Bill Frisell work). That warning aside, this is a very good album. The sounds and songs work together to simply give you something you've never heard before. Similar to "On The Corner" or "Freak In", Mylab has a certain amount of screetchy or clicky noise in its songs. The songs also groove or sometimes build to a satisfying conclusion (think of Frisell's "Unspeakable", which has some players in common, including Frisell himself). So if you want some jazz-esque music that's certainly not easy background listening, pick up Mylab.

This album contains some of the most original music I've heard in a long, long time. It tends to be the first thing I play for friends looking for something new and different, regardless of what kind of music they like. Jazz fans think it's great jazz, a bluegrass musician friend thinks it's great bluegrass, and fans of pop think it belongs to them. The fact is that this music defies classification into traditional categories. I had to order a new copy because a friend loved it so much I just had to give my first copy to him. Don't miss this one.

On two very cool levels, this reminds a lot of Medeski, Martin and Wood. First, there was soul jazz and hipster music in the 1950s-1970s, a lot of the possibilities of this material were never fully explored until 1990s bands picked up the Hammond Gauntlet. Second, the organ funk jazz format here is pretty similar.

But Mylab has a slightly wider pallate. This is not strictly soul jazz with avant-aspects. Mylab get into blues, world sounds, even some country blues flurishes. MMW has explored much of this over a career, and will no doubt wonderfully continue.

But this band does it all in one album, and this little capsule of experimentation makes this fantastic.

The used price makes it a no brainer. GET IT

A quick perusal of the guest conspirators on "Mylab" leaves me scratching my head. I know of Danny Barnes and Bill Frisell but only have vague tinges about the others on board, including Skerik, Eyvand Kang, Keith Lowe, and Robin Holcomb. That's enough to confirm that this will be a madcap adventure.

And it is.

Mylab, the self-titled CD, pulses with quirky energy channeled through a cerebral amalgam of music, voices, and noises that are propelled by the efforts of Tucker Martine and Wayne Horvitz. The composites (a better word than compositions in this case) cover and embed distinctive elements from all kinds of music. Some are smooth and other are jagged.

Most are fun.