The New Fusion Revue cometh: Seattle has produced Jimi Hendrix, Heart, Queensryche, and a bevy of grunge bands. Now, jazz guitarist Rik Wright might help to put Washington’s capital on the map when it comes to fusiony things. In less than one half-hour, Wright—also responsible for sequences, loops, and samplers—and his quartet put a new spin on ensemble playing and adventurous improvisations.
Formlessness is traversed in the 2-½ minutes of Polymorphism’s “Awakening”; the next track, “Scatterbrained,” is where the fun begins. Timekeeper Simon Grant and bassist James Whiton fuse their rhythmic imprint onto the trebly proceedings, and a synthbass projectile worms its way in & out of the proceedings with vulgar abandon, shaking the tension wires as it sees fit. Wright’s approach varies between stark minimalism and disjointed, “Frippian” playing, but this formula is balanced with a healthy infusion of melody. As the title suggests, the 4tet don’t make quiet music, yet throughout all of the chaos, there is structure. “Minor You” has Whiton bowing and scratching his double bass’s strings in a segment tantamount to his own minor cacophonic symphony; soon after, DeJoie’s clarinet licks the wounds clean with help from Grant’s cymbal swells.
“Hurry Up And Wait” is the standout piece, maybe even unintentionally so. It begins with a connect-the-dots random note barrage from Grant’s drumkit, a pulsating anti-melody from Dejoie’s sax, and the growling of the double bass. The raucousness smoothes itself out; Wright enters into a long, blues-tinged, minimalist solo that emphasizes control. “Some Assembly Required” is almost boisterously Kobaian: an unrelenting cadence, pumping bass, and Grant’s aggressive drumming help make this a beast of a noisy, heavy fusion track—complete with a fake ending and reprise! Guitar effects range from clean to wah to phased to wrung-out, pinpointed notes. Simply monstrous. “Afterglow” is an epilogue of Frippian spatial synthetics triggered by guitar & sampler.
First there was Isomorphism, now we’ve Polymorphism. Bring on the next one! A fine addition to jazz~fusion CD collections, everywhere.
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