{"id":25260,"date":"2023-05-14T05:30:48","date_gmt":"2023-05-14T09:30:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=25260"},"modified":"2023-11-20T04:05:20","modified_gmt":"2023-11-20T09:05:20","slug":"hundred-word-reviews-may-2023-part-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2023\/05\/14\/hundred-word-reviews-may-2023-part-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Hundred Word Reviews, May 2023 Part 3"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Jason Blake \u2013 Subsequent Ruins<\/i><\/b>
\nSeeing the 7D Media logo on this CD meant that Subsequent Ruins<\/i> went straight onto the must-hear pile. Y\u2019see, that\u2019s the New Mexico-based label that\u2019s home to Trey Gunn, thunderous stick\/Warr guitar player extraordinaire. And Jason Blake is a Warr guitarist, too. Teaming up here with the always-compelling drummer Marco Minnemann, Blake serves up a big, big, big instrumentalist sound. Sure, it\u2019s prog, and listeners who dig King Crimson and such will likely find that it hits their sweet spot. But there\u2019s an accessibility inherent in the music that renders it less foreboding than some of Crim\u2019s latter-day exploits. Brilliant.<\/p>\n

\"\"Lasse M\u00f8rck \u2013 Imagining Places No One\u2019s Probably Ever Been<\/i><\/b>
\nI don\u2019t quite know what I expected when I popped this CD into my player, but what I heard was totally unexpected. For this project, upright bassist M\u00f8rck assembled a chord-less quartet: trumpet (Jonas Due), saxes (Ludvig Samuelsson) and drummer Snorre Kirk join him on a delightfully tuneful set of originals. The harmonics on the eight tunes are the result, then, of collaboration; the four musicians work as a seamless unit. I hear you saying, \u201cOh, but that\u2019s what jazz is about!\u201d Yes, but the manner in which these four execute it is nothing short of inspired. It\u2019s supremely tuneful.<\/p>\n

\"\"Star Collector \u2013 Attack, Sustain, Decay\u2026 Repeat<\/i><\/b>
\nKnowing the (excellent<\/a>) kind of music Star Collector makes, I was amused to see the title of their latest album. It\u2019s a nod to an abbreviation used in the analog synthesizer world: ADSR. In that usage \u2013 describing the categories of sound envelopes, it stands for attack, decay, sustain and release<\/i>. But Star Collector is no synth band. So I\u2019m guessing the phrase pertains to a manner of playing electric guitar. These guys deliver a huge, wide-screen sonic assault, the kind of thing we expect from, say, Cheap Trick. No filigree here; their approach recalls the Smithereens. Roaring, rocking, really good.<\/p>\n

 <\/a>\"\"M-Opus \u2013 <\/b>At the Mercy of Manann<\/b><\/i>\u00e1<\/b><\/i>n<\/b><\/i>
\nIt was just this week when I was lamenting the lack of current-day progressive rock that eschewed the metal edge. So I was delighted to discover M-Opus. Deliberately retro, this Irish quartet makes albums that are specifically designed to sound like they were made in a specific year. And not this year: this one is their 1972 album. And they do it exceedingly well, which means that if \u2013 like me \u2013 you dig Close to the Edge<\/i>, Demons and Wizards<\/i>, Octopus<\/i><\/a>, Trilogy<\/i><\/a> and A Tab in the Ocean<\/i><\/a>, you\u2019ll dig this. Luxuriously melodic and technically adventurous, it\u2019ll take you right back.<\/p>\n

\"\"Paul McCann \u2013 Alter Ego<\/i><\/b>
\nAnother Irish artist? How lovely. Wish I had known about M-Opus (above) and McCann in March when I was in Dublin. No matter; we have their music, which is the main thing. With just the right amount of jangle, McCann conjures pop gems par excellence. His tonal palette is wide; one minute he\u2019s gentle, the next \u2013 sometimes in the same song \u2013 he rocks out. Lots of shade and light in these superbly arranged tunes. \u201cLost in This Moment\u201d is the best kind of pop: gloriously catchy. Try not singing along. Then give up and be swept along. A keeper.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jason Blake \u2013 Subsequent Ruins Seeing the 7D Media logo on this CD meant that Subsequent Ruins went straight onto the must-hear pile. Y\u2019see, that\u2019s the New Mexico-based label that\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25265,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,42,49,51,55,56,62,65],"tags":[5138,5135,5136,3609,4623],"class_list":["post-25260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-instrumental","category-jazz","category-new-release","category-pop","category-powerpop","category-prog","category-rawk","category-review","tag-jason-blake","tag-lasse-morck","tag-m-opus","tag-paul-mccann","tag-star-collector","cat-40-id","cat-42-id","cat-49-id","cat-51-id","cat-55-id","cat-56-id","cat-62-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25260"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25260\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26524,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25260\/revisions\/26524"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}