Another Review in Progression

[jdurant <jdurant@alchemyrecords.com>]

Congrats to our friends in the Dark AetherProject on a terrific review in 
Progression.  As it happens, a couple pages let, there's another review 
that may be of interest to the looping community; my new CD, Anatomy of a 
Wish:

Anatomy is a surprisingly quiet disc, given the heavyweight talent 
involved. Durant is credited with "abusing" not only standard guitars, 
but Cloud Guitars, E-bow and harmonic bow, while Tony Levin applies 
muscle to Stick, bass, and electric Upright Bass. (Michael Manring, no 
slouch himself in the low-end department, contributes fretless bass to 
one track, "Driving North.") And Vinny Sabatino all but steals the show 
with his wonderfully centered, evocative percussion parts. 

The disc is immediately very calming; soft cloud guitars over tabla and 
bowed bass set up a Durant guitar solo, with Fripp-like sustain. Ghost 
trails of delay, with Sabatino's tabla sounding like udu drums in their 
sharp, liquid resonance, decorate the track with Manring, while 
"Imminence" (good headphone piece) has shimmering cloud guitar chords, 
reminiscent of Greek synthesist Iasos, but darker.

This segues into "What Mattered Once," where Levin's bass establishes an 
ostinato, with gentle bells and gongs. There's also a Jon Hassell feel to 
tracks like "Sirocco," where dark clouds hover on the horizon, over what 
sounds like a drumset played like tabla.

The longest piece (at 12:43), "Minaret," has an edgy guitar solo, with 
phantom trails of sound burnt into the atmosphere in all directions. 
Durant's guitar at one point sounds like a long wire recoiling at high 
speed. The very attractive sound mix of this cut comes to a head around 
the eight minute mark, where the massed sounds recede into the distance, 
allowing the bass and percussion to gain the foreground. Durant's lines 
swirl and lie down to rest in the track's final minutes. 

If you have a taste for music that explores the dark regions, and even 
find comfort in such areas, Anatomy Of A Wish comes highly recommended.

-Larry Nai, Progression Magazine.

I should point out that when Larry commented on the Tablas sounding like 
Udu drums, it's because it was an udu drum. There are no tablas on this 
record.  Vinny and I spent a lot of time exploring a bunch of different 
drums and percussive instruments, and ways of attacking them, and the 
results are not very obvious as to their original source. Also: the long 
piece, "Minaret," was recorded "live" without any overdubs. Finally, all 
the cloud guitar parts involve the use of a couple JamMen (some looped, 
some long delays, and some samples (backwards), and an LXP-15-II and 
Vortex.

OK, shameless plug over now.
Jon