Guerguerian; River: Grooves For Old Times

There are certain albums that are much easier to be impressed by than it is to hand on heart say that you enjoyed. Grooves For Old Times by the ridiculously talented River Guerguerian sits somewhere in between. Not only based round percussive themes, Grooves... is in fact an album all about percussion. Yes there are voices, bass, didgeridoos and violins in attendance, but their only real purpose is to set the themes and build the atmosphere round which the likes of hand drums, frame drums, singing bowls, gongs and cajons are struck, beat and clattered. The results are at times quite spellbinding, harnessing the attention with jarring time signatures and rhythmic patterns. However there is also no escaping that on occasion the results do sound like little more than incidental music used to punctuate some TV documentary. I don't mean that to sound as belittling as it does, as never once do the performances dip beyond being impressive in so many ways. Deep textures and marvellous arrangements allude to the fact that the music on this album has been genuinely crafted with care attention and skill. It's just that whether many people will find all that much to truly engage with, I doubt.

There are no quick fixes, no soothing melodies and nothing that conventional wisdom would deem to call a "song". That in itself can be said of countless musical masterpieces, however the themes here often become impenetrable through their sheer weight. The lack of will to present anything as mundane as a 4/4 beat does ensure that you fully focus on each change, both in term of instruments and time signatures and the deftness of touch on some of the cymbal and gong work is stunning to say the least. This is precision work at its most precise. However - I seem to keep using that word - the formidable talent on show all too often feels like a percussion clinic where technique is displayed, discussed and dissected and much though I love those sort of occasions, whether I'd buy a recording of one, well...

Percussive obsessive's will undoubtedly love this release and I do mean LOVE this release and those with an eye on time signatures, poly-rhythms and world music will also get much from immersing themselves in Grooves For Old Times. For many however it will be more than a few beats too far.

Track Listing
1. Boulevard
2. Twenty Three Beats
3. She Walked In
4. Even Tambourines
5. Gong Lab
6. Odd Reflection
7. Seventeen Eights
8. Overture Six
9. Mud People
10. Ten For You
11. Overture

Added: March 30th 2012
Reviewer: Steven Reid
Score:
Related Link: Guerguerian Official Web Site
Hits: 1662
Language: english

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