Home Artist links Label link

Bruford/Levin - Bruford Levin Upper Extremities

Artist:	Bruford/Levin
Title:	Bruford Levin Upper Extremities
Label:	Papa Bear Records PBCD3
Length(s):	53 minutes
Year(s) of release:	1998
Month of review:	05/1998

Line up

Tony Levin - bass
Bill Bruford - drums
David Torn - guitar
Chris Botti - trumpet

Tracks

1)	Cerulean Sea	7.03
2)	Original Sin	4.55
3)	Etude Revisited	4.57
4)	A Palace Of Pearls	5.33
5)	Fin De Siecle	5.22
6)	Drumbass	0.54
7)	Cracking The Midnight Glass	6.06
8)	Torn Drumbass	0.54
9)	Thick With Thin Air	3.28
10)	Cobalt Canyons	3.53
11)	Deeper Blue	4.12
12)	Presidents Day	6.22

and three half minute interludes

Summary

Again a project in which Levin is involved. And now also that other KC guy Bruford who probably needed something new after his jazzy If Summer Had Its Ghosts. The presence of Torn might indicate something more experimental, while the presence of Botti's trumpet might make one think of Hassell.

The music

opens with the longest track on the album, Cerulean Sea, that combines seagull sounds with repetitive guitarwork, while the bass plays the main melody. The rhythms seem to stand loose from the music. Like I expected Torn is someone who likes to experiment and he certainly throws some weird sounds at us here. On Original Sin thee shrill, fluttering trumpet of Botti makes its presence heard. Quite a slow moving track this, even when the guitar screams quite vehemently. Certainly not as likable as the opener. Etude is a track that already occured on a previous album of Levin and Bruford (which? Christopher Small pointed out that this may be Etude In The Key Of Guildford from Tony Levin's World Diary). The music has something festive with the Mexican'ish trumpet, but the guitar adds a terrific touch and the rhythms are, as always, gems. A slight excursion into the Palace Of Pearls with some gamelan like sounds. The wailing trumpet, the throbbing bass, the dark synth sounds all evoke the loneliness of the falling night in the jungle. Later the Frippian guitar sets in, the drums start to bang. Fin De Siecle combines jazzy ideas with a rather abrasive Stick. Quite repetitive again. A bit of a jam this. Cracking The Midnight Glass opens with the NS upright bass, but it also has a tendency to sound like a cello to me and in fact the intro is a subdued as any cello can make it. Then comes a plodding part with nosiy guitar. As was the case with the previous track, the track ends the way it started. On Torn Drumbass we have Bruford and Levin on the drum bass and Torn playing slide giving it a slight country feeling. After an intro of oooh's, the slide of Torn enters the stage yet again. The music on this track is very calm and soothing. After the screamy Cobalt Canyons Deeper Blue is an oasis of peace and quiet. The album ends with Presidents Day, with which I'm not duly impressed. The track is a bit joyous and althought there's some free form percussion going on, it's a bit too frolic for my taste.

Conclusion

A more experimental album than Bruford If Summer Had Its Ghosts and I like it the better for it. Especially the additions of Torn are to my liking and his input is felt on such great tracks as Cerulean Sea, Etude Revisitied and A Palace Of Pearls. The album is not as experimental as Gorn/Levin/Marotta and can be seen as to fit right in the middle, which is not to mean that it is mediocre. The music can be quite extreme, although not really loud, but there is just such a wide array of effects, from the loud noisy guitar of Cracking The Midnight Glass to the dark synth of A Palace Of Pearls this is an album for which one has to be in the right frame of mind and using headphones is certainly recommended. Like the Lonely Bears there's some jazzrock and some world music on this album and the music often lies in between. The music of the Lonely Bears however is often rooted in folk and tradition, while Upper Extremities goes more for the experiment.