From my first go at it I knew I needed to cover this one. It is firstly a vehicle for Eve Risser's African rooted compositions for big band, consisting of herself on piano and some eleven musicians. The album makes time for some eight pieces, which center around infectious and open groove-freedom exaltations that seriously graft together African riff-rhythm concentrations that leave room for free improvs with floating electronics and horn sailings.
One hears a relation to some of George Russell's Living Time pieces as well as Miles in his Afro-Psych-Groove excursions in his last band from the '70s period. There are elements that suggest an affinity with some of the Art Ensemble of Chicago's Afro-Free meldings as well. And then too we get this band's and Eve's own takes on how that complex of traits lays out in space and time, with a tight series of written expositions and tight, then loose pointillistic improv sublimities.
In the process there is a very nice blend between electronics and acoustics, in a mode that does not separate the two but rather Euro-Africanizes it all in special ways. Antonin-Tri Hoang plays some nice alto and Eve's pianoism are key elements along with some other decent soloists and keen-eared embellishers. The drums-percussion-mallet players happily hold forth with a real verve in ways that remind us how much we who follow the world muse have learned and absorbed from our Mother Africa.
As I listen and re-listen this music grabs me in its deeply expressive and deeply varied whole-part beauty.
Get this one and play it a lot of times. It will doubtless make you smile. Eve Risser must be heard!
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