Anderson Chute Easley: Adventures Of The Moss Bear

Anderson, Chute and Easley, rather cleverly accentuated into ACE on the CD sleeve for the rather wonderfully titled Adventures Of The Moss Bear are three chaps who, if the press release is to be believed (and why wouldn’t we?), have come together from disparate backgrounds to fire up an avant-garde instrumental fusion trio. What’s also worth mentioning at this stage is that only one of the compositions on this six track offering had any kind of semblance prior to the trio meeting up in the studio to record them. There’s free-form and then there’s out and out improvisation.

Viewed through the prism of those brave beginnings the results are surprisingly coherent, with the threesome clearly able to communicate through their instruments. However, inspected as a collection of pieces meant to entertain and enthral? Well, certainly for me this album works in almost no way whatsoever. Dull, lifeless and often completely lacking in focus, while I can appreciate the lofty, ambitious intentions here, not even the vocal led track, “Slender Forest� featuring Dave and Kass Krebs behind the mic, does anything other than waft by with nary an interest in snagging your attention.

“Pop Medley From Outer Space�, a twelve minute sprawl of guitar lines, bass rumbles and drum forays that seldom acknowledge each other is, in all honesty, tough to get through without wondering what might be on TV, while the even longer title track simply does not have enough of, well, anything going on to merit its near 20 minute running time.

If you want to walk on the experimental, but still somehow remarkably restrained side of life, then maybe Adventures Of The Moss Bear is for you. In truth, if the trio behind this had sat down and worked out exactly what they wanted to do before they hit record and these were the results, I might well have knocked off another full star. As it is the below score is more for effort than results.

Track Listing
1. Camellia Dreams
2. Five Gallon Hat
3. Slender Forest
4. Pop Medley From Outer Space
5. Ozzy
6. Adventures Of The Moss Bear

Added: October 11th 2023
Reviewer: Steven Reid
Score:
Related Link: Anderson Chute Easley @ bandcamp
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Language: english

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