" The entire album is an organic construction and expression of solos, duos, and trios combining disparate and divergent stylistic histories with a sense of refreshing immediacy, intensity, and spontaneous inventiveness"
This is what they'd have you believe. I'm sure that for some people, that's exactly what they'll get. However, in reading between the lines, we see what kind of record this is. It's a free jazz record. You know, the kind that when you start listening to a track it sounds like the musicians are merely warming up, and before you know it the track is over and they've gone on to another, nearly identical one? Yeah, one of those discs.
Bloom Ensemble is a quartet made up of Thollen Mcdonas (piano, voice, bells), Rent Romus (saxophones, voice, electronics), Jon Brumit (drums,electronics,objects), and Steven Baker (The Bellows). Bloom is an exploratory album that seems to be more about the creative process than the end result. The tracks are mostly open-ended soundscapes; blank canvasses upon which each musician seems to be allowed to paint whatever he pleases. The results can either be viewed as "art" or as an incohesive hodge-podge of mismatched ideas. The choice is up to the individual listener.
This disc is a difficult listen even when one focuses his entire attention to it. To try to fully grasp it while being otherwise engaged is a gargantuan chore. It's not that the music is too intense, it's just that each musician seems to be playing without any real regard to what the others are playing. Occasionally, there are some decent quieter passages where things come together, but it mostly seems like people of different languages trying to have a conversation. If you enjoy this kind of stuff and "get it", then by all means seek it out. To each his own.
Track Listing
- Stamen (3:35)
- Chandelier (4:29)
- Efflorescence (4:36)
- Vociferate (3:05)
- Bloom (5:24)
- Pistil (6:48)
- Discussion (6:56)
- Rent Asunder (2:22)
- Sam (2:33)
- Spots (3:12)
- Burgeon Shiver (3:18)
- Interruption (4:49)
- Pollen (5:04)
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