Programmed

Innerzone Orchestra | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (August 24, 1999)
• Original Release Date: August 24, 1999
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Astralwerks
• ASIN: B00000JXS9
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #148,003 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Wrong Number

2. Manufactured Memories

3. The Beginning of the End

4. Programmed

5. Eruption

6. Monsters

7. Blakula

8. People Make the World Go Round

9. Architecture

10. Basic Math

11. Timing

12. Galaxy

13. At Les

14. Bug in the Bassbin

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Future-jazz visionary Carl Craig's Innerzone collaboration project highlights his pedigree as a producer, arranger, and all-around genius, ranking him with the likes of Stepney and Jones. Craig has created an album that genuinely manages to break new ground, merging the musical past with the technological future, blurring the textures of the electronic and the organic. "Manufactured Memories" like "Blakula" sets the abstract pace, as breaksmith Fransico Mora executes immense live drum technique (as he does throughout) within an electronic framework. Like some lost studio session tapes of Herbie Hancock, Sun Ra, and Max Brennan, "Basic Math" and "Timing" are avant-fusion workouts. As some plunder and exploit, claiming originality, Craig makes no secret of the inspiration drawn from the others' works (including the superb reinterpretation of the Stylistics' "People Make the World Go Round"). By borrowing, reconstituting, and making his own, he has created something very unique and utterly sublime. --Amazon.co.uk

From Jazziz

In the awkward embrace between jazz and electronic dance music, the same compatibility problems keep popping up. Either the music operates within too narrow a rhythmic sphere to inspire genuine improvisation or the harmonic content isn't interesting enough to hold the attention of jazz players or the mood remains locked in a rigid, one-dimensional frame that's resistant to all manner of crashing and bashing. Two 1999 releases eluded these traps - Tim Hagans' Animation/Imagination and Detroit techno maverick Carl Craig's collaboration with pianist Craig Taborn and percussionist Francisco Mora Catlett, the Innerzone Orchestra. Where Hagans' outfit played like Miles Davis' Silent Way band parachuting into the fourth hour of an all-night rave, DJ Craig figured out how to utilize electronically derived patterns to launch agitated, absorbing, in-the-moment musical conversations. These dialogs between worlds had the skronk of jazz fusion but none of the pretension, the repetitive throb of electronic dance music with little of the residual numbing mindlessness. Such delicate balances make Programmed a landmark, of sorts. It's one of the very few electronic records in which improvisation is more than mere window dressing, where the exchanges between the beatkeepers and the hired jazz hands feel genuinely open and spirited, if not spontaneous. Taborn glances at Joe Zawinul (the burbling synths of "Monsters") and Herbie Hancock during his Fender-Rhodes period (the refreshingly un-basic "Basic Math"), but his best forays exhibit a knack for subverting the status quo and a command of the techno vocabulary that enables him to take big polyrhythmic risks and prevail. While not all of Programmed involves Taborn, his tracks have enough juice to suggest the end of lurching and hesitant electro-jazz and the start of a whole vibey new thing.

--Tom Moon, JAZZIZ Magazine Copyright © 2000, Milor Entertainment, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My personal album of the year..., November 13, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Programmed (Audio CD)

...and believe me, I've purchased a good amount of music so far. But out of what I've purchased since Jan. 1st, this is the album that has received the most play. Carl Craig is truly a world unto himself; only an artist of his caliber and his sense of ambience and rhythm could pull off a project.

And it's the music that speaks for itself. There isn't a weak moment in the bunch. "Blakula", as others have mentioned, is the unequivocal masterpiece, as sonic synths give way to violins and a smooth bassline. Also of note are two distinctive covers: "People Make The World Go Round", the Stylistics classic, redone with a masterfully arranged string section and great guitar and vox by Paul Randolph, and "Bug In The Bass Bin", a remake of Craig's 1992 classic tune that has since become a staple of breakbeat music. Here, acoustic instrumentation gives the song a whole new dimension.

Much respect to his co-contributors, esp. former Sun Ra percussionist Francisco Mora, keyboardist Craig Taborn, bassist/vocalist Paul Randolph, and Plastikman (who assists on the chilling, Blade Runner-influenced "Architecture".)

I don't think any else needs to be said. This is a brilliant album that, unfortunately, won't make much noise in a stagnant music scene dominated by bubblegum drivel. But for those with triple-digit IQs, this album will take you somewhere you haven't been before. Man, it's a helluva trip.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It is what it is., December 11, 2001

By 

Andrew M. Schirmer "violist/student" (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Programmed (Audio CD)

So many records found under the various subgenres of "electronic music" describe themselves as "jazz-based" or "jazzy." Put most of them on, and your speakers will reveal nothing more than a façade of what jazz truly is--the music is more often simply a nice background for eating dinner or making love. How refreshing when one artist comes out with a fusion that simply blows your mind and shatters all expectations!

Carl Craig's Innerzone Orchestra project did just that with this 1999 release. I found "Programmed" to be quite accessible, yet rewarding as well. Craig is obviously fascinated with the rhythmic possibilities afforded by jazz, and uses them to full measure. This is not your 4/4 Dave Clarke or Laurent Garnier techno madness! "Programmed" relates to Jazz in the cohesive sense (the way live drumming, programming, etc. work together) rather than improvisation over modes or chord progressions.

Highlights for me included furious percussive workout and erie synths of "Manufactured Memories," the sci-fi funk of "Monsters," and the aural construction of "Architecture," a collaboration with Richie Hawtin (Plastikman). And how can you not mention "Bug In the Bassbin," which wraps things up stunningly. "Programmed" is an amazing and infinitely rewarding effort from Carl Craig.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars looking down and smiling, September 5, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Programmed (Audio CD)

if miles, sun ra, john coltrane and charlie mingus were all alive....they would have begged to have been on this album. records like these happen once a decade that mark the progression of jazz and its future. not only does carl craig carry the torch, but adds his own special kerosene to make it burn brighter than it has in decades.