Hu Vibrational w/Eivind Aarset, Bill Laswell, Steve Gorn: The Epic Botanical Beat Suite

Ethno Jazz/Free Improvisation/Avant-Garde
premiera polska: 24.11.2015
kontynent: Ameryka Północna
kraj: USA
opakowanie: digipackowe etui
opis:
multikultiproject.blogspot.com - ocena: * * * * 1/2
Nowojorskie wydawnictwo META Records przedstawia zaskakujący projekt. Pod enigmatyczną nazwą "Hu Vibrational: The Epic Botanical Beat Suite" ukrywają się doskonale znani fanom nowego jazzu muzycy, jak zjawiskowy perkusjonista Adam Rudolph, urodzony w Casablance multiinstrumentalista Brahim Frigbane (Peter Gabriel, Medeski Martin & Wood, Hindi Zahra) czy Eivind Aarset, Steve Gorn i Bill Laswell.
Pomysłodawcą nagrania jest Adam Rudolph, nietuzinkowy muzyk, którego można znaleźć wszędzie tam, gdzie przecinały się drogi transowej muzyki rytualnej i nowego jazzu. Wystarczy wspomnieć długoletnią współpracę z Yusefem Lateefem, ale także z Samem Riversem, Omarem Sosą, Wadada Leo Smithem, Pharoah Sandersem, Billem Laswellem, Herbie Hancockiem, Jonem Hassellem czy Foday'em Musa Suso.

"Hu Vibrational: The Epic Botanical Beat Suite" to siódemka wybornych pekusjonistów - Adam Rudolph, Brahim Fribgane, James Hurt, Matt Kilmer, Tim Kieper, Keita Ogawa, Tripp Dudley i zaproszeni goście, w osobach gitarzysty Eivinda Aarseta, grającego na flecie bansuri Steve'a Gorna, basisty Billa Laswella i klawiszowca Alexa Marcelo.

Wielość instrumentów pochodzących z najprzeróżniejszych kultur, jak nigeryjski Udu, południowoindyjski Kanjira, peruwiański Cajón czy brazylijski Caxixi tworzą wielobarwny dźwiękowy kobierzec, którego uniwersalnemu pięknu trudno nie ulec. W żadnym momencie płyty nie słyszymy muzycznego nadmiaru, popisów, nie to jest istotą tego nagrania. Dominuje tu raczej podejście "im mniej tym lepiej".
Każdy z siedmiu drummerów mógłby być ozdobą wielu, nie tylko jazzowych składów. Jednak Adam Rudolph skłonił ich, aby weszli do studia i się nie pozabijali. Więcej, skłonił ich do poszukiwania źródeł pra-rytmu, stąd ta widmowa wręcz oszczędność w operowaniu dźwiękami, rytmem... Doskonale kontrapunktowana rozlanymi plamami dźwiękowymi autorstwa Laswella i Aarseta.

Wyśmienita płyta, hipnotyczny trans wypływający jakby z ziemskiej czeluści, który ukazuje sztukę muzykowania, jako sztukę łączenia kultur, tradycji, pokoleń, idei, narodów.
autor: Jarosław Lisiak

Editor’s info:
Hu Vibrational's new album mixes deep percussive African rhythms and Afro - Jazz with elements of hip-hop and electronica. Recorded and mixed at Bill Laswell’s state of the art studio, this is the fourth album by Hu: Vibrational and for those who bought the previous 3 releases this will not disappoint! Produced and mixed by Adam Rudolph together with longtime Laswell engineer James Dellatacoma, the album features 7 world percussionists along several special guests including Bill Laswell hitting the deep pockets on bass plus Norwegian guitar whiz Eivind Aarset creating ethereal electronic palettes.

Joining Rudolph in the groove department are the percussionists from his Go: Organic Orchestra project: Brahim Fribgane, James Hurt, Matt Kilmer, Tim Kieper, Keita Ogawa and Tripp Dudley. Each of these great drummers has performed extensively worldwide; here they perform Rudolph’s rhythm compositions on a wide variety of world percussion. The tracks were then electronically processed and transformed in the mixes into a true ancient to future expression; a dance music style Hu calls “Boonghee Music”. With 2 acclaimed releases on Soul Jazz Records (Beautiful and Universal Mother) and Scott Heren’s (Prefuse 73) Eastern developments label, Hu Vibrational’s deep spiritual music draws on the links between Africa, Jazz music and avant-garde Hip-Hop.

Adam Rudolph is known for work with Don Cherry, Pharaoh Sanders and other great “jazz artists, as well as his 25 year partnership with the legendary Yusef Lateef. He currently also leads his Moving Pictures Octet and the 36 piece Go: Organic Orchestra.

Almost 10 years since the last Hu Vibrational release of “Boonghee Music”, Rudolph turns his creative energies back to HU by creating a deep groove masterpiece – indeed; a vision of future dance music. As Tommy Chong so aptly puts it, “When you hit a groove, it's not you; it's the spirit world.”

REVIEWS:

popMATTERS - ocena: 7/10
Hu Vibrational is Adam Rudolph’s mad army of percussionists. They are six members strong and use a dizzying array of toys to produce their sounds such as the udu, the bata, the sogo, the rebolo, the gankogoui, the caxixi, and a whole bunch of other words you probably need to look up through Google images. For The Epic Botanical Beat Suite, their fourth album together, Rudolph and company signed up with Bill Laswell’s Method of Defiance label and recorded the music in the bassist’s Orange Sound Studio. In addition to the six members of Hu Vibrational, four other musicians stop by to add shading additional shading. Through all the clang and bang, The Epic Botanical Beat Suite emerges from the heap a tipsy collidescope of sound. Not unlike the stoned-looking cat on the album’s cover, you can work yourself into a strange euphoria where contradicting elements like rhythmic madness, spacey sounds, and a cool feeling of arithmetic interlock combine to both soothe and stimulate. If you remain confused, just look at the cat and go with your gut.

Rudolph and Hu Vibrational refer to what they do as “Boonghee Music”, connecting “links between African, jazz music and avant-garde hip-hop.” It’s not a guarantee that all of those genres will pop into your head at some point or another while immersing yourself in The Epic Botanical Beat Suite. If anything, Hu Vibrational are being pretty narrow in their self-description. “Soma” recalls Hassell and Eno and “Kwa-Shi” touches on a level of funk that avant-garde hip-hop, for all its bold moves, rarely touches. The vocal chants of “Hikuli” are a clear indicator that he have now left the North American continent, setting sail for a land that uses music to communally exorcise what needs exorcising. Rather than put forth too much effort by performing in too many styles, Hu Vibrational operates in the little pockets between the styles. What is jazzy is also worldly. Worldly is also funky. Funky can be avant-garde and avant-garde can be jazzy—and so on.

With four special guests contributing skills of the non-percussive variety, The Epic Botanical Beat Suite could have collapsed from its own weight. Yet the presence of upwards to ten musicians on any given track never feels that crowded. Busy, yes, but never crowded. Laswell contributes his distinctive bass while Elvind Aarset lets rip a scorching guitar. Steve Gorn’s bansuri flute blends in well with the ensemble’s African slant (though the instrument comes from a different continent) while Alex Marcelo’s electric piano would appear out of place based on sight alone. Shut your eyes and it’s as though the fender Rhodes and polyrhythmic ensembles were supposed to go together.

The spectral aspect of The Epic Botanical Beat Suite comes about very naturally. It doesn’t feel like Rudolph, the producers, or Hu Vibrational smacked their heads against a wall in order to make a percussion-driven album sound appealing. Sometimes just the very ease of an art form can be its selling point. Fortunately, this music gives you a bunch of other fun bits to chew on as it goes down.
BY JOHN GARRATT

All About Jazz - ocena: * * * 1/2
The Epic Botanical Beat Suite—the fourth release from percussionist Adam Rudolph's ever-evolving Hu Vibrational—is a trance-inducing rhythmic trip.

Rudolph, the man behind the bulky Go: Organic Orchestra and the Moving Pictures Octet, has always been adept at creating distinct outfits. Hu Vibrational has served as his vehicle for blending African rhythms, minimalistic tides, and electronica-influenced sounds into hypnotic soundscapes. In the past, this mutable band has been a bit heavier in sound yet lighter on personnel. The version of Hu Vibrational that's featured on The Epic Botanical Beat Suite—containing seven percussionists, guitar wizard Eivind Aarset, bansuri flutist Steve Gorn , bassist-producer Bill Laswell, and Fender Rhodes ace Alex Marcelo—creates a heady sonic stew with far more breathing room than one might expect with such a lineup.

When thinking of seven percussionists in one place, "subtle" isn't a word that would normally come to mind. But that's the right word to describe the contributions made by Rudolph, Tim Kieper, Keita Ogawa, Brahim Frigbane, James Hurt, Matt Kilmer, and Tripp Dudley. This crew artfully blends together to create a seamless tapestry of rhythm that shows great tensile strength yet remains texturally thin, for the most part. When these percussionists merge with the mind-expanding contributions of Aarset ("Soma"), the colorful bansuri work of Gorn ("Agobi"), the here-and-gone bass of Laswell ("Ya-Jey"), and the glaze of Marcelo's Fender Rhodes, the end results are mesmerizing.

Those looking for slamming beats, hook-laden melodies, or harmonically complex scenarios won't find them here. This is a different type of band with a different set of goals. Hu Vibrational is all about communing with the groove spirits and creating worlds where earthy rhythms and other-worldly sounds are one.
By DAN BILAWSKY

Jazzda Gama
You can be sure that when Adam Rudolph and an ensemble of breathtaking drummers get together mystical and wonderful things will happen. The hand-drummer, percussion colourist and composer Adam Rudolph has a deep connection with the spectral world of music. Mr. Rudolph and this fabulous line up of six drummers play instruments from Africa and Asia and they are joined in by other musicians playing guitar, flutes and Rhodes. Add all of this up and you get musical hypnosis that ascends like a great gust of air, hot breath rising as if exhaled from the depths of the earth. Call it that and you probably would not be far from the truth. And you would be remiss if you were not mesmerizingly seduced into the spirit world by “Charas” and “Soma”—the breath and drink, as it were, of the gods of the spirit world.

Hu Vibrational COverHaving been swallowed whole by the music you might get an “inside view” of the proceedings. So where does that leave the music? A deep dive into the nature of connections, that’s where! But connections indeed. This excellent album in like a trip along a fabled silk route; a musical train dotted with caravanserai linking the musics of Africa, India, and the countries of the Middle, Near and Far East, blurring the lines that separate teach of them, joining, drumming hands vibrational… summoning the Hu and the Aum… the elemental sound of life resonating with these drummers and their guests; musicians all, in tune with the spirit world. The whole project is a masterpiece of subtlety.

The drummers take on the lineage of the cool. The spacey curling of the music from the wide world of drums is far less than conventional here, seeing as they are heard summoning the rumbling of a conscious Earth, inhaling and exhaling floating benignly over the sound of the bass, the guitar the Rhodes and the bansuri. The ensemble in turn adds a rich and entirely unpredictable harmonic and rhythmic foundation to the music. The surprises, when they come, are effective, but discreet: a gamelan-like riff is played as pizzicato harmonics, just as the African voices rumble with polyrhythmic gravitas. A delicate curlicue of a bass line underpins what sounds like a shape-shifting Gaelic lament, and a close-knit ensemble passage develops from a single phrase. “Soma” as well as “Hikuli” (to some extent) has a rippling Jazz groove that gently builds under the drummers murmuring. Elsewhere on the record the drummers inject a cinematic quality to the music, launching into a brooding percussive tumbling groove, before a loose funky close. The recorded sound balances great detail with incredible warmth. And for this we have the wonderful engineer, James Dellatacoma to thank.
By Raul da Gama

muzycy:
Adam Rudolph: bata, slit drum, rebolo, gankogoui, udu, percussion
Brahim Fribgane: cajon, tarija, udu, percussion
James Hurt: sogo, kidi, igbo bell, udu, percussion
Matt Kilmer: frame drum, djembe, kanjira, udu, percussion
Tim Kieper: dusun’goni, pandiero, caxixi, udu, percussion
Keita Ogawa: earthtone drum, frame drum, hadjira, pandeiro, udu, percussion
Tripp Dudley: kanjira, cajon, bayan, frame drum, udu, percussion

Special guests:
Eivind Aarset: electric guitars
Steve Gorn: bansuri flutes
Bill Laswell: electric bass
Alex Marcelo: fender rhodes

utwory:
1. Akete 6:08
2. Charas 4:14
3. Soma 5:21
4. Hikuli 4:36
5. Kwa-shi 5:00
6. Agobi 5:08
7. Ya-jey 4:38
8. BONUS TRACK Akete remix 9:21

more info: www.metarecords.com