{"id":40349,"date":"2007-06-28T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2007-06-28T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/synaesthesia\/"},"modified":"2007-06-28T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2007-06-28T00:00:00","slug":"synaesthesia","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/synaesthesia\/","title":{"rendered":"Synaesthesia"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019re wondering who it was who insisted on calling this month\u2019s retrospective a Police retrospective, despite the fact that half the albums are Sting solo releases, that would be me.\u00a0 Why? \u00a0Part of it has to do with my having enjoyed\u00a0Andy Summers\u2019 autobiography One Train Later<\/i> so much<\/a>.\u00a0 Part of it is that I find most of Sting\u2019s post-Police solo work so self-conscious and self-important as to be extremely tedious (though many people do enjoy it\u2026 different strokes and all that).\u00a0 And part of it is just the principle of thing; the Police were a trio in which none of the three could realistically lay claim to being a more accomplished musician than the other two.<\/p>\n

That said, guitarist Andy Summers\u2019s solo work has for the most part languished in semi-obscurity.\u00a0 Which \u2013 as Ronnie Montrose can attest to \u2013 is often the case when an artist known for mainstream work begins to make music less for an audience than for himself \u2013 art that is more personal, more daring, and less commercial in its intentions.<\/p>\n

The Police have always claimed to all love jazz, but when you examine the evidence, they seem to all come at it from different angles.\u00a0 Sting\u2019s solo work is more or less the epitome of squeaky-clean white-soul smooth jazz; drummer Stewart Copeland\u2019s post-Police work has been steeped in world music polyrhythms; and Summers takes the improvisational ethos of jazz and makes free-form, thoroughly experimental and ultimately unclassifiable music.<\/p>\n

Synaesthesia<\/i> presents Summers in full mad scientist flower, taking you on one instrumental mind-trip after another.\u00a0 Just to spice things up, on this disc his usual cadre of studio pros is supplemented by the presence behind the kit of the one and only Ginger Baker of Cream.\u00a0 (If you\u2019re expecting to hear \u201cSunshine Of Your Love,\u201d though, don\u2019t hold your breath!) <\/p>\n

Opener \u201cCubano Rebop\u201d finds Summers playing sweet, angular solos over a husky bed of Santanaesque rhythms, focusing on tone more than melody and structure.\u00a0 Soon afterward \u201cMeshes of the Afternoon\u201d comes lumbering along, anchored by a rather ominous repeating figure.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

\u201cMonk Hangs Ten\u201d is the perfect title for a track that scampers like a puppy, mixing Dick Dale surf motifs with intricate Thelonious modalities, even throwing in a Spanish guitar bridge.\u00a0 It\u2019s a musical smorgasbord that\u2019s as entertaining as it is diverse.<\/p>\n

Next up, \u201cUmbrellas Over Java\u201d delivers a brilliant Eastern-Western mind meld that lays chord patterns out of the Mumbai\/Jakarta axis over rhythms lifted from the trail-riding sequence of a John Wayne movie.\u00a0 Not only does the unlikely combination work, it lights up what might just get my vote as best track on this disc.<\/p>\n

Summers approaches every cut as an opportunity to experiment, lavishing each with the kind of subtle touches and textures that make them feel equally unique and important, like a series of miniature paintings.\u00a0 A few tracks feel almost dissonant (notably the intriguing \u201cInvisible Cities\u201d), but in the end Summers manages to make even these feel as if they serve a purpose within the context of the larger album.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

The title track is one of his most daring forays in the musical laboratory, as well as one of the simplest: Summers is alone at the piano, playing heavy two-handed chords for five full minutes in a pattern that moves from rhythm to melody and back again, ultimately achieving a kind of hypnotic majesty.\u00a0 You\u2019re either going to like it or hate it; I liked it.<\/p>\n

Bottom line — this is challenging stuff.\u00a0 Police fans who buy this or any of Summers\u2019 other solo work looking for an instrumental version of \u201cDon\u2019t Stand So Close To Me\u201d are liable to feel pretty disoriented.\u00a0 But if you can open your mind enough to get it around some very experimental, eclectic free jazz, Synaesthesia<\/i> offers a garden of plenty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":28849,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7980],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-40349","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-andy-summers","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40349\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=40349"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=40349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}