WILSON/LEE/BENTLEY: Escondido Dreams
Drip Audio, 2007

Vancouver trio of guitar (Tony Wilson), cello (Peggy Lee) & saxes (Jon Bentley) in an eclectic set of avant/free music with some nice chamber-jazz excursions mixed in (1,4). It has an unforced, folkish sound that makes even the strangest twists seem natural, even traditional at times... gotta be the cello that does that.

Fo’s Picks: 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 10, 11, 12

1. 4:19 – warm, dreamy, gently rocking rhythm: an appealing little tune
2. 2:43 – midtempo angularity: little themes bracket free playing
3. 3:26 – strange electro burblings undermine slow, somber melody
4. 7:44 – serious but folksy, with an unresolved feeling, gently lyrical middle
5. 3:16 – hollow metallic sounds, a dreamy gauze over an industrial scene
6. 1:21 – strange guitar manipulations, mostly left-channel
7. 3:37 – oddball propulsion, breaks down, drifts, gets noisy, floats away
8. 6:27 – slow, melancholy, unsettling: turns more ballad-like later on
9. 7:13 – overlapping lines, guitar drives a sharp groove, then quiet freefall
10. 3:04 – oblique theme, then crunchy free-jazz with surprising unity
11. 4:12 – noise guitar, then perky tiptoe melody, breakdown, relaxed tune
12. 3:10 – shards of melancholia, like a very dusty old room (with moths)
13. 6:52 – long tones, tragic & acidic, then falls into a harsh repetitive groove
14. 2:42 – scratchy strings like rasping breath under slow melody

[ Fo ] 10-Feb-08