posted 09/28/2008 (Sun) @ 08:00 am
>>> Music Reviews
Rail - Rail (2008)
Jazz / Fusion / Post-Jazz / Experimental
Off the hook, onto the Rail
- Ana Crusis
- Eye
- Partners In Crime (Barrister, Barrister & Barrister)
- In Black & White
- The Secret Influence of Colors
- Interlude
- Lirr
- When Dogs Bark
- Anyday Is A Good Day For Halloween
- Soma
- Too Blue for Twilight
If you play one wrong note, it’s a mistake. If you play that wrong note again… it’s jazz.
Even as one of America’s only original musical artforms, jazz is an acquired taste. As Tom Cruise’s character puts it in the film Collateral, jazz is “off-melody.” “Between the notes” is what counts. Jazz doesn’t play well with others. It’s best when it stands on its own, does its own thing, and its influence rarely influences for the better. A rock/jazz fusion usually takes the worst bits of both genres and combines them in an unholy marriage of boring, atonal-for-atonal’s-sake unlistenability. Sure, there are exceptions (Steely Dan, for one, or the funky, Japanese jazz-blues of The Seatbelts), but “jazz fusion” inevitably conjures images of old guys with dirty ponytails and wrinkly, button-down shirts, totally ruining their own bastardization of “Stairway to Heaven.”
Rail are past all that. They aren’t stuck in the ’70s for their brand of fusion. They’re post-jazz fusion.
What the hell does that mean? Less overlong (tens of minutes) meandering. Well-rounded, concise saxophone and guitar-driven explorations in harmonic structure. Tons more unpredictability than something your local “alternative” station might play, but with no less fear at turning their precious, fragile amplifiers to eleven.
Rail do it different. Think of them as a livelier, jazz-influenced cousin of slowcore post-rockers Dirty Three. Like that trio from Australia, Rail’s tunes are less songs than they are pieces which build in intensity, morphing, contracting and expanding. Unlike Dirty Three, Rail’s pieces do it in timeframes closer to what radio listeners demand. And although they’re playing pieces and taking solos that the average alternative kid will have trouble wrapping his head around, the beautiful tinkle of Bitches Brew-toned electric piano, well-seasoned sax, and starry-eyed, Pumpkins-influenced guitarwork are downright enchanting.
Their imaginative talents with their instruments shine through on every track here. “The Secret Influence of Colors” sees the band pumping on some meaty, overdriven guitar chords to start. The resultant energy paves the way for subdued, then exuberant sax. Then an ethereal keyboard section breaks the tension midway through, and the outro brims with virtuoso percussion. Or check out the heart-attack-paced, vigilante superhero theme music of “Soma”; the groovy thrum of “Too Blue for Twilight”; “In Black & White”’s cozy lounge keyboarding, needled with shards and cascades of yowling guitar; or the downright unholy union of punk and jazz in “Interlude”’s revved-up and cacophonous twenty-six seconds.
Like pure jazz, Rail is an acquired taste. Purists on both sides will hate them, but whatever their secret formula, they’re absolutely smashing. Open-minded alt-rockers and indie hipsters will find a love supreme in Rail’s energized genre blending.
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Tags: avant garde, best of 2008 candidates, experimental, fusion, jazz, post-jazz, rock, saxophone
1 comment on this article
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Three Star Smash » Blog Archive » The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble - The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble (2006) Says:
October 21st, 2008 at 1:45 pm[...] If The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble (the album) tickles your fancy but leaves you hanging on for more, you may also like Robert Sabin’s Romero, a caustic, dark jazz recast of the soundtracks to George A. Romero’s Living Dead movies. For more outside-the-box jazz, try Rail. [...]
