Demian As Posthuman

Mini-grooves with funk leanings but an avant-garde aesthetic. Like funk in eternal free-fall: tumbling rhythms forming a continuous but not-so-repeating groove. Similar feel to Steve Coleman's work in the '80s. Spacey little constructions. Most tracks are just sax and drums, with sequencer chords as backdrop. Tracks 1,7,12 bring in a full band.

Lehman and drummer Tyshawn Sorey are 2/3 of the band Fieldwork; third member Vijay Iyer (piano) joins on tracks 1 and 12. These tracks feature the same complexity and dry snap of Fieldwork, the same techno-hungry 21st-century feel informed by dance electronica. But where Fieldwork is hammering and ominous, this disk has a lighter touch, a more stripped-down feel.

1- Quick-footed w/small piano.
2- Elaborate groove with a couple of sequencer breaks
3- Slow overlapping sax tones
4- Reprise of 3, longer, with drum and drum-machine breaks
7- Midtempo groove, some electronics
8- Languid sax riff backs fast drum improv
11- Eerie, fairly fast, w/sci-fi noises
12- Happy, with insistant pulsing piano/sax

5, 6, 9, 10- Chaotic little grooves, with popping mid/fast saxes over drums and synth chords. All rather similar; 9 and 10 are more energetic, while 5 has a faster start.