Record Reviews

TATVAMASI ~ THE THIRD EAR MUSIC AUDIO CAVE 2020/013 (Barcode: 5908298549186) ~ POLAND ~ Avant-Garde Jazz-Rock Fusion Recorded: 2018 - 2019 Released: 2020 This is the sixth album by Polish quartet TatvamasiFind albums by this artist, which documents a series of music meetings held under the slogan of the album´s title, recorded over a period of couple of years by the four members of the ensemble: guitarist Grzegorz LesiakFind albums by this artist, saxophonist Tomasz PiatekFind albums by this artist, bassist Lukasz DownarFind albums by this artist and drummer Krzysztof RedasFind albums by this artist and a plethora of guests from Poland and abroad, including Avant-Garde drummers Vasco TrillaFind albums by this artist from Spain and Peter OrinsFind albums by this artist from France. The album presents seven compositions, all uncredited and assumed to be a result of improvisations by the participating musicians. The music, as expected from the underlying concept, is a series of extended improvisations, based on sketchy melodic fragments and rhythm patterns, which characterizes Improvised Music. It preserves to some extent the usual Jazz-Rock Fusion modus operandi of Tatvamasi that was dominating their earlier recordings, but expands the horizons and embraces Free Improvisation, basically letting things happen on the fly as they develop. The three pieces recorded by a quartet, with vocalist Marta GrzywaczFind albums by this artist (and without Piatek) are definitely the high point of the entire album pointing to a direction worth pursuing. To be perfectly honest, as much as I like Tatvamasi, this stuff just doesn´t work for me as well as I expected it would. I admit to being somewhat fed up with the Improvised Music recordings that the Polish scene produces en mass and often without any selective process on one hand, and the fact that throwing a group of unrelated musicians in one room and let them play whatever comes to mind very rarely guarantees a spectacular result on the other hand. I appreciate the will to explore and search, and the courage to try something new, but hope this is a one time extravaganza, and the music will return to more productive exploration in the future. Overall this is an interesting experiment, and as such worthy of appreciation, but the resulting music, stripped of the circumstantial excitement, is rather pale summa summarum, with just occasional interesting moments. Sorry guys, it´s just me.

Updated: 12/01/2021Posted: 12/01/2021

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