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Re: Great review!!!
> In a message dated 4/5/02 1:12:57 AM, steve@steve-lawson.co.uk writes:
>
> >just got this review through from Ed Friedland of Bass Player magazine,
>
> Congratulations!
>
> I don't seem to be able to find the review in the most recent BP that I
>have
> (the April/Mingus issue). Maybe it's in another date. Nor can I find
>Andre's
> review on your site. But, nevertheless your music is worthy of all the
>praise
> it's getting. I've only listened to the downloads so far -- I really
>need to
> get
> on the stick and order a CD -- but your work is most impressive.
Hi Ted,
the review hasn't gone into BP yet (and possibly won't in that exact
format) - Ed sent the
comments direct to me... My first solo CD was reviewed in the mag, about a
year ago...
As for Andre's review, here it is -
" 'Conversations' finds pianist Jez Carr and bassist/loopist Steve Lawson
deftly walking
a fine line between new age and avant-garde, drifting from meditative
serenity to
angular abstraction so smoothly that the seams barely show. With its
extended and
often reflective feel, the highly-attuned duo improvisations allude to the
vintage eras of
record labels like ECM or Windam Hill. But Lawson's use of live electronic
looping
throughout the album is the real wild card here: sometimes injecting
traces of ambient,
dub, and even post-Warp abstraction into the mix, while other times
seamlessly adding
a virtual third instrumental voice to the proceedings. We've all heard
live performances
filtered and chopped through a non-linear post-DJ mentality, but
'Conversations' pulls
the remarkable trick of inverting that equation, by placing a choice
selection of digital-
age flourishes into the overall framework of sensitive, sympathetic, and
highly organic
instrumental improvisation."
...Mr LaFosse, you definitely have a side career brewing as a writer...
:o)
> >It's really nice when a review actually provides you with new ways of
> >describing what you do that are accurate rather than hyperbolic... :o)
>
> Yeah. Don't get me started on that particular thread. Heh, heh, heh. My
> own CD has continued to get positive reviews since I last posted on the
> topic. But, as often as not, even the positive reviewers don't really
>"get
> it."
> Though I have to admit some of their hyperbolae does stroke the ol' ego
> in many ways.
Indeed it does, but it also breeds a curious contempt for those who heap
misguided
praise onto your work... or if not contempt, at least bemusement... i had
a couple of
reviews for the first album that were fantastic (I didn't get any bad
ones, but anyway) -
too fantastic - my album's quite good but certainly not worth '10/10' by
any objective
measurement - Kind Of Blue? 10/10, Dolittle? 10/10, Steve McQueen? 10/10,
What's
Going On? 10/10, Hejira? 10/10... I'm pretty sure that my first solo
effort isn't really in
that company! :o) It's still worth buying (if albums that were less than
perfect weren't
worth buying, CD shops would be very small indeed), and is certainly one
of the better
solo bass CDs out there (believe me, I've heard a lot, and many are
unlistenable - it's
not without reason that bass soloists are viewed with much suspicion)
...and I'm also
very very grateful to everyone who has bought it thus far, and rather
chuffed to know
that a few people have started playing solo bass as a direct result of
hearing it, and a
few others have got turned onto other people doing similar things by
hearing my stuff
first - but that sort of subjective response is different to a journo who
hasn't done their
homework...
...Which is why when people like Andre and Ed write stuff that even sheds
light on the
way that I perceive my own music, I cherish it even more...
cheers
Steve
www.steve-lawson.co.uk