Search - Uri Caine, Bedrock :: Shelf-Life

Disjointed

afbg02 | San Francisco, CA United States | 01/29/2006

(2 out of 5 stars)

"This disc missed the mark for me. It's a great lineup of talented people, but they just don't really seem to put a cohesive, interesting recording together. There are some good tracks, with ambient electronic elements and some actual instrumental improvisation. I generally enjoy electronic elements in jazz, eg: Dave Douglas or Craig Taborn and many other examples in the Blue Series recordings. The problem is that this disc falls back into a kitsch funk fusion far too often. There are a handful of tracks that are sort of playful replicas of 70's fusion. That might sound fun, but this sort of funk fusion was novel and relevant 20 years ago, and rehashing it fails to recreate either of those qualities. Perhaps I missed it, but I don't hear what new ideas the musicians bring to this sound. These tracks were so uninteresting as to prove distracting from the handful of good moments on the album. Essentially, after listening through the disc twice, I just don't really ever want to hear it again. I, for one, am dissapointed."

Badass

Christopher Barrick | Bloomington, IN | 07/02/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"this album hits hard from the beginning, but changes it up like crazy.



uri caine is a musician very much in tune with what is happening in the music world, therefore the d n' b tracks sound like something squarepusher would have programmed, the hip hop tunes groove extremely hard, etc. this guy knows what's up!!



perhaps it is musician's music, for better or for worse"