Optometry

Optometry

by DJ Spooky
Optometry

Optometry

by DJ Spooky

CD

$17.99 
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Overview

Thirsty Ear's Blue Series has already been host to many progressive jazz projects, among them albums by William Parker, Matthew Shipp, Craig Taborn, Guillermo Brown, Mat Maneri, Tim Berne, and others. The label also did a project with British DJ drum'n'bass duo Spring Heel Jack that was neither a jazz album or a DJ record, but some strange amalgam unto itself. DJ Spooky's Optometry is the next installment in the Blue Series' DJ experiments, and it's one that succeeds on every level. For starters, Optometry is fully a DJ outing and fully a jazz record. The band playing with Spooky is comprised of Parker; Shipp; Brown; Medeski , Martin & Wood's Billy Martin; Joe McPhee; Carl Hancock Rux; and others. Spooky plays bass and kalimba besides his turntables and mixing board. He illustrates, collages, paints, spindles, cuts, and mixes a live performance by the rest of the band. On "Reactive Switching Strategies for the Control of Uninhabited Air," Billy Martin cascades snares and toms in counterpoint to his ride cymbal, setting up a rhythm that is followed by Parker and Shipp. Shipp's playing fleshes out the motif and makes it a modal stretch, and the time signatures fluctuate between four and eight, as Spooky dovetails -- a la Brian Eno -- various timbres and harmonics emitted by the individual musicians, as well as the quartet sound. Slipping keyboard washes in between Shipp's repetitive lines that are big enough for Parker to vamp crazily on, and putting distance in between various segments is the DJ's art here. The title track moves from abstract arpeggiattic saxophone striations by McPhee to phat, dirty, nasty, synth lines from Shipp, playing some combination of the funk in Sun Ra's Lanquidity and Herbie Hancock's Head Hunters. While this is happening, Parker pops and bows his bass to stay alongside the bottom end of the groove for a particularly disorienting effect, as it almost falls apart at the beginning of each chorus. Spooky samples all the proceedings and mirrors them back slightly altered while adding loops and found sounds to break down even the most innate structure in the tune so it has to be built according to memory. Whew! When the scratch attempts to do that, Shipp moves to his acoustic piano, and McPhee comes inside to refract Shipp's lines back to the rhythm section -- which includes Spooky at this point. And this goes on for almost 12 minutes. There is no let up in the creative vibe here; each member attempts to express for the collective. Spooky included. Riff, vamp, timbral fractures, lyrical tension, splintered harmonics, and a constant, seductive sense of groove permeate this jazz album, opening up a door onto a brave new future for a free jazz with soul -- Spooky has exceeded all expectations here. ~ Thom Jurek

Product Details

Release Date: 07/09/2002
Label: Thirsty Ear
UPC: 0700435712126
Rank: 124990

Tracks

  1. Ibid, D¿¿smarches, Ibid
  2. Reactive Switching Strategies for the Control of Uninhabited Air
  3. Variation Cybern¿¿tique: Rhythmic Pataphysic, Pt. 1
  4. Asphalt (Tome II)
  5. Optometry
  6. Sequentia Absentia (Dialectical Triangulation I)
  7. Rosemary
  8. Dementia Absentia
  9. Parachutes
  10. Absentia Absentia (Dialectical Triangulation III)
  11. Variation Cybern¿¿tique: Rhythmic Pataphysic, Pt. II
  12. P¿¿riphique
  13. It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, World

Album Credits

Performance Credits

DJ Spooky   Primary Artist
Napoleon   Primary Artist,Vocals,Beat Box
Daniel Bernard Roumain   Primary Artist
High Priest   Primary Artist
Pauline Oliveros   Primary Artist,Guest Artist
Daniel Carter   Primary Artist
Carl Hancock Rux   Primary Artist,Vocals
Billy Martin   Primary Artist,Drums
William Parker   Guest Artist,Bass
Joe McPhee   Guest Artist,Trumpet,Sax (Alto),Sax (Tenor)
Matthew Shipp   Guest Artist,Piano
Jack Walker   Flute
Guillermo Barreto Brown   Drums
Guillermo E. Brown   Drums

Technical Credits

Paul D. Miller   Producer,Composer,Liner Notes
Cynthia Fetty   Design,Photography
Billy Martin   Beats
Napoleon Maddox   Composer
Carl Hancock Rux   Composer
Flam   Engineer
Daniel Bernard Roumain   Composer
Pauline Oliveros   Performer
High Priest   Performer
DJ Spooky   Producer
Matthew Anderson   Composer
Matthew Shipp   Series Art Design
Daniel Carter   Performer
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