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Alex Ward - Help Point
A new release on Copepod, Ward's own label; I wasn't sure what I made of it at first but the more I listen to it the stronger it seems. Basically an improv meeting between two sides of Ward's work, with the Luke Barlow Band (which, to judge by the sound samples of their site, is fusiony/Zornian cutup music, with Ward on guitar) & his improv partners Steve Noble & Simon Fell. I find myself more & more impressed with Ward with each release--on this one, for instance, he's got a sound-arsensal which seems to incorporate every sound on Zorn's Classic Guide to Strategy even though he's not got any sax or duck calls at all, just a clarinet! But he's not one of those improv players who focuses on small areas of his technique/sound to explore, nor is he an extremist (there seem to be a lot of clarinettists who like to be piercing just to grab attention). It's more linear & langorous & "inside" the music, not grabbing the foreground. -- It's my favourite kind of genre-hopping/blending album, which is to say that rather than pointing at its own cleverness or referentiality it doesn't feel like anything's being collaged together--it establishes an idiom of its own. I could imagine this one appealing both to fans of Miles Davis's fusion stuff & also listeners from the free-improv side of the divide. Plenty of groove playing here, some of it very combustible & exciting ("The Deil's Head", "The Cronk"), & also more spacious pieces. Check it out.
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Linear Mode
