Durant, Jon: Alternate Landscapes

Jon Durant is an American guitarist who has worked with some notable musicians including Colin Edwin (Porcupine Tree), Tony Levin (King Crimson, Peter Gabriel) and highly touted drummer Vinny Sabatino. I first became familiar with Durant upon hearing Burnt Belief, his collaboration with Colin Edwin. It’s an impressive project combining elements of prog, world, ambient, fusion and jazz. Durant’s new solo album is titled Alternate Landscapes and follows his 2018 release Parting Is and his first album Dance of the Shadow Planets in 2014, both of which I have not heard.

Durant is far from your typical guitarist in that he creates vast soundscapes instead of traditional arrangements, clearly influenced by the likes of Tangerine Dream, Brian Eno with perhaps a dash of Robert Fripp and Mike Oldfield. As such, these four tracks adding up to fifty-eight minutes of music can almost be taken as one sound collage, slowly cascading and building with atmospheric swells and highly textural trippy soundscapes. This is not an album to play when you want to rev things up, but when you are in a contemplative mood this ambient-like other worldly music just might serve you well. If there was ever music built for headphone listening this is it.

Released on the artist’s own label, Alchemy Records.

Track Listing:
1. Systravatn (15:56)
2. Aragon (6:56)
3. Ciel du Cheval (20:32)
4. Dinkelsbühl (15:11)

Added: August 21st 2019
Reviewer: Jon Neudorf
Score:
Related Link: Artist's Official Site
Hits: 801
Language: english

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