DJ Spooky: Celestial Mechanix
DJ SPOOKY
CELESTIAL MECHANIX: THE BLUE SERIES MASTERMIX
THIRSTY EAR THI 57148.2 CD
This remix project commemorates the thirtieth release in Thirsty Ear's Blue Series, an attempt to configure a vibrant "Electro-Jazz" brand to match the legendary Blue Note imprint of the sixties. For every Jazz remix project teetered twixt the profane and revolutionary (Richard Maxfield's collages, Terry Riley's cut-ups of Chet Baker and Alice Coltrane's Bollywood Orchestra over-dubs) there is one thumb-sucker (courtesy of US3, Doo Bop and Mo Wax). Thankfully Spooky brings enough austerity to the proceedings to make this offering marginally more Cecil Taylor than Horace Silver.
Say what you like about Spooky's occasionally nonsensical finger-snapping rhetoric, a Po-Mo argot bent on the faintly pointless task of refiguring avant-garde thought within the framework of riddim culture, you can't fault his gigantic sonic canvases of punctuated sludge. If his isn't as venomous and thrilling a vision of Hip-Hop as Lil' Jon's there is still much in the way of glacial excellence here, for instance in the waves of piling multiplying cymbal feedback and gong-drone on pianist Matthew Shipp's "cd:dir>Gesture Occasionally one does wonder how well served the more "open" tracks by source contributors Matthew Shipp and Mat Manieri are. One of Spooky's recent remarks: "Morton Feldman, you could just add a little beat underneath" inspires worry, though on "Nommos Ascending" which dispatches with drums in the name of ambience (illbience?) he shows how he can complement the free-fall crew, ironically turned in for former funglists Spring Heel Jack. It's Pro-Tooled trebled sax lines and digital transposition reveal a Marion Brown-styled ARP-baubled squiggle-space. Comes with a free mix CD. Now you can nod your head AND stroke your beard.