Hanspal, Chanan: Epemeral Morph

If you like your guitar fast, intricate, funky and intelligent, this is the album for you. It is quite literally bursting at the seams with melodic and rhythmic twists and turns in every track. The album blazes straight into life with the exuberant opening track 'Drive to Loule' featuring some tantalizing improvised flute passages woven into the intricate textures.

A further nine tracks follow this stunning opener, each allowing plenty of leg-room for saxophone, keyboard and guitar solos as well as very catchy jazz-fusion unison heads. There is a real feel of a band playing together and they must be very impressive live. Most of the album follows this format, centering on solid funk grooves and virtuosic playing throughout.

A second key element in the album is the use of irregular metres with time-signature changes thrown in here and there. 'Antique Romeo' is a good example of this type of approach with Zappa-esque noodling bookending the piece. It is driven even harder in the subsequent, title track 'Ephemeral Morph' complemented by a heavier, rock guitar sound. When Derryl Gabel joins the fray in 'Any Old Iron' things hot up even further. This song ends, as does the final track 'Planet Julie' with a glimpse of other keyboard timbres which I would have liked to have heard explored a little more. The final track also features a very exciting and dexterous keyboard solo on a distorted organ/synth sound.

The playing is superb in all quarters on this album and I'd recommended it to anyone interested in fusion, rock, jazz and funk. Do also check out what this very talented artist does besides playing the guitar. Chanan Haspal has written some interesting articles about other guitarists, including in-depth transcriptions but he also writes about life, the universe and much more.

Track listing
1) Drive To Loule
2) Lock and Key (feat. Jeff Lorber)
3) Chas
4) Irene's House
5) Antique Romeo
6) Ephemeral Morph (feat. John Medeski)
7) Burlequeville
8) Fern Splendour
9) Any Old Iron (feat. Derryl Gabel)
10) Planet Julie (feat. Lalle Larsson)

Added: March 31st 2013
Reviewer: Colin Riley
Score:
Related Link: Artist Website
Hits: 1937
Language: english

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