Mazurek, Rob / Exploding Star Orchestra - Dimensional Stardust CD
SKU
28-NNS643618.2
Rob Mazurek - director, composer, piccolo trumpet, electronic renderings, modular synth
Damon Locks - voice, electronics, texts
Nicole Mitchell - flutes
Macie Stewart - violins
Tomeka Reid - cellos
Joel Ross - vibraphone
Jeff Parker - guitar
Jaimie Branch - trumpet
Angelica Sanchez - acoustic piano, electric piano
Ingebrigt Håker Flaten - bass
Chad Taylor - drums, percussion
Mikel Patrick Avery - drums, percussion
John Herndon - drum machines
Another really great one, perhaps a little mellower than "Galactic Parables, Volume 1".
"Dimensional Stardust showcases the intricacy and complexity of Mazurek’s compositions but in their most potent, most compacted forms. Opting to focus on tight ensemble orchestration over passages of open improvisation, Mazurek distills a maximal orchestra of explosive improvisers into a beautifully restrained, graceful group exercise in melodic minimalism.
The album features almost no “soloist” moments, excepting Jeff Parker’s other-worldy guitar meltdown on “The Careening Prism Within,” and when Nicole Mitchell’s flute floats to the front of the barrage on “Sun Core Tet.” Mazurek himself is sparsely present as instrumentalist, only occasionally joining the ensemble with his piccolo trumpet (notably on “Parable 3000,” where he shares leads with Mitchell’s flute and Joel Ross’s vibraphone, and his trills and textures haunt ghostly around Jaimie Branch’s trumpet counterpoint). Even Damon Locks’s voice is employed more like an ensemble instrument than a lead vocalist. Locks’ distinctively dry, abstract narrative flow beams in intermittently – sounding almost like fragments of Deltron 3030 through an Orson Wells-style radio transmission – climaxing in the album-closing poetry of “Autumn Pleiades.” And all the way through, the electro-acoustic poly-rhythmic percussion section (Chad Taylor, Mikel Patrick Avery, and John Herndon) churns, thrusting the music forward as the harmonic instruments collectively bow between frenzied, futurist chromaticism and soaring, pan-humanist pentatonic anthems.”
- LabelNonesuch
- UPC075597918601