| Medeski, Martin and Wood--Radiolarians III |
| Written by Alex Simon |
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The third album of MMW's Radiolarians tickles Alex Simon's fancy. Radiolarians III is, if you couldn’t figure it out, the third and final album in Medeski, Martin, and Wood’s Radiolarians series. Apparently, the jazz masters have short attention spans and “by the time a record company gets [an album] out, we’ve already been playing the music for six or eight months, and we’re ready to move on.” The solution: reverse the recording process! Instead of following the usual development process on their three albums: write, record, and tour; MMW wrote the material, honed it through extensive touring, and finally recorded it in mid-2008.The concept is most certainly sound. One of the main reasons I attend concerts is to listen to artists tweak their own sound: throwing in an extra trill here, some extra beats there. The added improvisation throws something special and one-of-a-kind to each performance—which will now be readily available on the albums. After all, that edge, their improvisation and exploration truly defines MMW’s exceptional quality. To put it simply, the Radiolarians albums incorporate not only the creativity normally found in a studio album, but the new twists and turns usually only added in after extensive touring. Let’s get to the point: MMW’s deviating experiments led to a full-blown success. The Radiolarians albums are spectacular. While admittedly it is more accessible than albums such as Radilarians (Radiolarians?) I and Farmers Reserve (One of my favourites), Radiolarians III explores at least as many genres as I have fingers; twisting through Indian, country, and funk music. Each song is allowed plenty of time to reach out, breach the reasonable creative limits of the genre, and then wind down before becoming too drawn out, which is a problem the trio has faced time and again in the past. In all honesty, every song on here feels astonishingly fresh, and so creative that the time just flies by; I hardly noticed as the nine-minute track “Kota” wound through. The album opens with “Chantes Des Femmes,” which allows Medeski free reign of the keyboard throughout almost the entire eight-minute piece. It starts with bouncy synth-y tunes; constantly rotating between the higher and lower octaves and flowing into a more classic keyboard, where the explored rhythms repeat. While this piece clearly features Medeski, Wood’s bass answers the keyboards at every offbeat, and Martin’s drumming takes off after the switch to classic keyboards, adding a whole new element to the song. The keyboard improvisation takes a turn, slowing down, and becomes more melodic (if only slightly dissonant, but what did you expect?) as it bridges the gap into the second piece; the incredibly catchy traditional folk tune turned jazz rock; “Satan Your Kingdom Must Come Down” when it joins halfway through with Wood playing a fuzzed-over bass, giving the tune an extra bluesy twist. On the third track, Medeski finally rests halfway through the tune (and about 17 minutes into the album) leaving Wood’s bass to dominate the eastern-influenced “Kota,” a personal favorite. Medeski moves backstage, but continues his ever-resourceful piano improvisation while Wood mimics various Asian and African instruments on his bass. The fourth track, “Undone,” notable in its rock song essence, makes MM&W sound similar to New Order. They highlight the song with a repetitive and almost wandering heavy bass which, at routine intervals, devolves into straight up dance music featuring bouncy percussion and prolonged synthesizer chords. As far as I know, this is the only MM&W track I’ve ever heard which has what could be tenuously referred to as a verse chorus structure, thus lacking in the MM&W’s token inventiveness. Plain and simple, Radiolarians III knocked me of my feet. Even having listened to MMW albums as far out as Farmers Reserve and as well-received as End of the World Party (Just in Case) I was still nowhere near prepared for what I found on this CD. Which exactly describes MMW; they always move forward, leave no stone unturned in their winding songs, and push their limits just a little farther. Medeski, Martin, and Wood have once again proved their worth as experimental jazz legends. 4.5/5 Wooves ( |
