ALBUM REVIEWS
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ALBUM REVIEWS |
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Callisto
LIVE @ THE HAMPSHIRE JAM 2009 AD MUSIC 2009 @www.vanguard-online.co.uk
I believe that live performance is always going to be more interesting musically. There’s great art you can make by splicing things up ala some of Miles Davis’ 60s and 70s albums and there’s a perfection in choosing the best parts for a polished studio record but, live, there is a conversation. Good musicians will interact, play off each other, work on new ideas (to a greater or lesser extent) and, in a truly great band, you will hear them listen to each other. Just sample the second half (after they’d warmed up!) of one of the myriad Grateful Dead releases to hear a band traversing new territory with material decades old. Callisto’s live release is two tracks from a studio release played long-form, each a good half hour long. From a simple pattern, each builds through the introduction of rhythms, textures and melodies, to different levels and states of being. Sometimes they drag a bit but that’s while the band is figuring out where to go next and, as Jerry Garcia said to Paul Morley, that’s what life is like and a concert is part of life. It is certainly a way to free the mind as it follows the interplay; the places where one musician nudges the other – “how about this” – and looks for a response or drops the development. Nothing startling evolves but maybe it wasn’t that sort of a day. These pieces have been edited a bit and polished in the studio but remain essentially live. Callisto is David Wright’s other head – David Wright being label supreme of AD Music. In the studio the band is David plus Dave Massey. Live it’s David plus Geigertek, thus forming two-thirds of electronic band, Code Indigo. It’s all a big game of masks! The sound is slow, relaxed, full of string synths. It’s not going to raise your pulse rate and would well be enjoyed in a warm place with a glass of something nice by your side. The corny festival pun (Hampshire Jam) might conjure up an image of foot on the monitor, balls-out, kick out the jams rock and roll energy but the reality is a couple of blokes playing with nice sounds and chilling beats in front of a very relaxed audience. Not something this reviewer is going to have on top of the in-heavy-rotation listening pile but, for fans of electronic music, perhaps an extension of what they already know and enjoy of the genre. Available as download or CDR direct from the label. www.admusiconline.com |
