(Rock) Liquid Trio Experiment - Spontaneous Combustion (2007) - 2007, APE (image + .cue)

Liquid Trio Experiment - Spontaneous Combustion (2007)

Страна: USA
Жанр: Rock
Год выпуска: 2007
Формат: APE (image + .cue)
Трэклист:
1. Chris & Kevin's Bogus Journey
2. Hot Rod
3. RPP
4. Hawaiian Funk
5. Cappuccino
6. Jazz Odyssey
7. Fire Dance
8. Rubberband Man, The
9. Holes
10. Tony's Nightmare
11. Boom Boom
12. Return Of the Rubberband Man
13. Disneyland SymphonyДоп. информация: For a split second I was thinking we are dealing with a new Liquid Tension Experiment album here. My raving enthusiasm cooled down quickly. Yes, we are dealing here with bass beast Tony Levin, key wizard Jordan Rudess and mighty octopussy Mike Portnoy, but the footnotes are too important to ignore. Not only the name of the band (that is: project) is slightly changed; number four of the liquid experiment, guitarist John Petrucci, is absent. Thereby the recording sessions took place shortly before the recordings of 'Liquid Tension Experiment 2', in other words: these songs dated from the Fall of 1998. So what's the use of releasing this old bunch of jams? Which they are, as a matter of fact.

This album consists of almost eighty minutes of experiments, jams and other "spontaneous combustions". The trio improvises with great enthusiasm, while this wasn't originally intended. The band was in fact in the studio for recording the second album, but just that moment John Petrucci got a call from his wife that she was premature labouring their child. So off he went for a couple of days. To kill time before the others could go further with John, they started to improvise in the studio. The results of those days were sadly lost during the mixing stage of their second album, until musical archivist Mike started to look in his own collection and found the sessions on a live 2-track DAT mix. He's still so enthusiastic about the jams that he wants to share his enthusiasm with us, almost ten years after the recordings.

Some of the recordings did make it on that second album, like '914'. Also the album versions of 'Chewbacca' and 'Liquid Dreams' dated from these sessions (although they have different song titles on this album), and it's just that the guitar parts of John were implemented at a later date. The rest of the jams aren't released before. Partly that's justifiable, but there are also some nice parts and passages that make you float in their jam-trance. It's an unforced and adventurous mix of rock, fusion, jazz and slight experimental sounds which is somewhere in the middle of the improvising talents of Djam Karet and the firm fusion character of Mahavishnu Orchestra, mostly with Mike playing a leading role. Except for the intriguing contrabass solo 'Tony's Nightmare' that got a sinister classical theme, which would be a perfect tune to be worked out by four Finnish metal cellists for instance. With only bass, drums and keyboards you still miss the binding factor and certain tension fields (in this case: the guitar), because not everybody can be in a jam session already as brilliant as Medeski, Martin & Wood, not even LTE. But it's easy (and pleasant) to hear that the three guys anticipating on each other at a high level, so this is another proof that it's not a surprise that shortly after these recordings and the recordings of 'LTE 2' Jordan Rudess took over the keys from Derek Sherinian in Dream Theater.

Not suitable for people that want to hear songs, but perfect voor jam fans… and for the Dream Theater legion, of course.