This album is Legendary Bassist Josh Werner's solo debut album and is co-produced by Bill Laswell for this album of instrumental soundscape, almost Library music. Josh has in the past worked with among others Matisyahu, Lee Scratch Perry and The Wu Tang Clan.
For me any album about Titan will always be compared to Phillipe Petite and Jono Podmore's re-working of Gustav Mahler's Off To Titan and this album doesn't come close to that ones feel for Space and the gas clouds of Titan.
Right from the opening tune Traversal it's clear that this is soundtrack or library music with a Sci-fi edge to it, although you wouldn't put it on the soundtrack to a film of Kurt Vonnegut's Sirens of Titan. This is gentle and floaty and very laid back indeed.
The Crossing has a cool bass line around which not much happens as they seem to be crossing the calmest bit of space imaginable.
Subversion isn't particularly subversive unless your idea of subversion involves laid back chill out music, it might just about work as soundtrack music to a sex scene in a very vanilla dungeon, it's like he's heard Hans Lundin's music and wanted to make something on those lines but without the 80's production values.
Mode For Titan has the bass making some Rhubarb and Custard style, almost chase noises, that are then covered in some spacey noises and it just sort of meanders.
Quiet Star is a very quiet gentle bass rumination with what might be a sitar in the deep background, this really is music to be talked over.
Arcane Path feels like it could be a reworking of one of Toto's piece's on the soundtrack to Dune as they try to find a way through the clouds and the sustained notes eventually send you deep into slumber just as the bass part sort of gets interesting.
|
Light Of Other Suns seems to have stripped back some of the ideas in Joe Harriot and John Mayers Indian jazz fusions to there core and then more or less ended up with the bass and a few textures layered on top although this lacks the joy in the Joe Harriot material.
Danger Road has a squelchy feel to the bass as it does lots of low-end stuff as the strings sort of have a bit of a dervish feel to them.
Free Matter feels like sculptural bass figures crawling across the lowest end of the spectrum, it's quite doom-laden and foreboding.
New Compass is slow ruminative bass slowly evolving as the odd tones come in as you try to figure out which way is north in the middle of space.
Ship Of Theseus has a quite familiar Bass pattern at it's core as it gently undulates like the Mediterranean sea on a calm day.
The album closes with A Return that doesn't feel like a massive re-entry or splashdown, it's more like your creeping back in hoping not to wake anyone up as the bass tones gently descend as if to bed.
Find out more at https://modreloaded.bandcamp.com/album/mode-for-titan https://www.facebook.com/josh.werner3/ You can also view some of Josh's artwork here http://www.jdwerner.com/
|
