Ben Perowski and the Moodswing Orchestra

Drummer Ben Perowski has been around. He's worked with Steve Bernstein's irreverent Sex Mob, Elysian Fields, Uri Caine and "a host of others," as the saying goes. Just now he's gotten the chance to express his wider vision of what music sounds in his inner ear. That has resulted in the Moodswing Orchestra (El Destructo) CD. It is highly interesting, rather unclassifiable, and sonically epic in its proportions.

There are all kinds of people coming in and out of the aural landscape, Bernstein, for example, some compelling vocalists, and electronics-turntablist Markus Miller. It has a rock-funk beat underpinning most of the time. But what's on top is continually shifting in an ingenious collage-tapestry of ambiance and sound palletry.

So what is it? Post-jazz, post-rock, post-post? There is a downtown flavor, certainly, and that in its best sense of "anything is possible so anything goes." Perowsky comes through with fascinating arrangements and combinations of elements. Here I am on my fifth listen as I write these lines, and I still can't get my cognitive ears wrapped around the whole of it. Now that is a good thing, I think.

You want to embark on a new trip? Sick of formula? Here you go. The Moodswing Orchestra will give you a new turf to ply.