Weekend Intermission is our regular feature where we look at an artist or band not from the Nordic countries, just to mix things up a bit.
Booker Stardrum is the exhilarating drummer for SML, the Chicago-based dream quintet on the International Anthem label. Here, debuting on the Scandinavian We Jazz record label the serial collaborator goes it alone. Well, kind of, for he does have the help of a decent cast list of other gifted musicians (both SML-connected and not).
Singles prior to the album’s release gave a decent indication of the experimental sounds herein, and if you know SML (one of the finest bands on earth right now), surely you knew to expect something less than conventional.
The title track album opener, ‘Close-Up on the Outside’ is sparse and tricky, not giving much away, and then ‘Telluric’ shuffles in, all uncomfortable and mesmerising, a glimpse of Stardrum’s wand being wielded well. Dizzying in its brilliance it leaves us wanting more, feeling at mercy to the strange nature captured on the cover and within the product.
Music to keep you on your toes, if not exactly danceable in its immediate nature, the snaking route is reminiscent of SML, a journey with unexpected happenings every time you even remotely settle in.
Brief interlude ‘Reset’ once more leaves us deep in contemplation, part of the intriguing charm of entering Stardrum’s orbit.
‘Third Nature’ is compelling, a minimalist feast, a trippy hole to suck people down and melt their minds. It’s quiet, chirpy, gorgeous, a pulsating rhythm you never want to end. When its monotonous spirit does change it only grows, expands, delights even more.
‘Dusk’ eases in, a transporting ambience to it before it gently pulsates and a trumpet provides a jolt, the track then throbbing as it proceeds before it all rapidly dissolves like a dream.
Ten-minute ‘Hover’ is an effortless and piercing demonstration of Stardrum’s abilities, the musical idea he possesses. Its opening teases and taunts, gets its motor started on its own terms, crackles and shimmers with sonic reflections, flashes, and colours, as it does indeed appear to hover.
Over land, over water, watching something graceful and grotesque below, unwavering in its magnitude. Its piano motif captivates. A few simple notes ringing over and over, a hypnotic essence to it. It does take off, after seven minutes, with a brief percussive flurry, before returning to its calmer waters of yore, the familiarity, the piano motif repeated a glorious coup. The reliance on echoing its beauty repeatedly provides a profound bite, as if dreaming the same divine recurring dream.
Following on from another short interlude track, ‘Inside Sounds’ tops off the album with a livelier and almost quizzical look, thrown shapes created through ambient electronics meeting jazz, the two sauntering off into the sunset in jovial spirits. Stardrum, the creator, happy with the way his puppets – the two genres – have pulled off his instructions across the album.
The vision here, put in simple terms, is one sculpted by a master beat-smith. The electronic aura that encircles this free-minded jazz makes for one mind-blowing article. For experimental jazz heads like myself – you need this, you need this now!
NMC rating: 8/10
Find him on:
Website: https://bookerstardrum.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bookerstardrum/
Bandcamp: https://bookerstardrum.bandcamp.com/
