Jigsaw begins with 2 fairly short, straightforward “chase” jams. The third jam drops down to a sort of laid back drum and bass jam which features some sublime guitar work from Barber. This turns into an uptempo dance jam really naturally, and the theme they land on is really solid. This gets spacey and psychedelic, and Brownstein teases the Solstice bassline for a good portion of the jam. The jam out of Ladies is wonderful. There is a Blissco section here that is very “jambandy,” but it works so, so well. Of particular note is how great Magner’s leads are here. From this blissful, uplifting theme, the band switches gears and flips to a darker theme as they head into Abyss. The Abyss jam develops a fantastic, multi-chord progression that features some great guitar work from Barber. This is not too elaborate, and it shows that when you keep things simple it can pay off in a major way. Brownstein and Magner develop this chord progression absolutely perfectly. Near the end, this essentially turns into a Caterpillar ending jam, complete with a very similar peak riff from Barber.

There is a real laid back jam at the beginning of the second set. I actually enjoyed this and thought they could have stretched this out significantly more, but they halt after 90 seconds or so and then just begin Morph. Dang. The jam in Morph begins like every other Morph funk jam ever. Around 9:50, Barber switches off guitar and hops on to MIDI keyboard. Admittedly, I had forgotten he used this beyond 2007. They sort of do nothing for a minute or two, and Magner comes back in at 11:00 with a fantastic lead melody. Magner elaborates on this lead in really neat ways, although I don’t think Barber adds anything to the jam here with the overly resonant noise he plays over and over. Around 13:30 Barber tries to come in with a lead, and it’s painfully clear he doesn’t really know what he’s doing. Instead, he dips off the lead patch and plays an arpeggiate, space disco sounding patch, and this actually adds a neat textural effect to the jam. However, other than that Magner lead for 30 seconds or so, the first half of this jam can be skipped completely. Around the beginning of the Cyclone track, the band drops into a four-on-the-floor jam, and this suddenly gets much better. That said, this is basically just a drawn out Cyclone intro. I liked it, but as a jam this isn’t really all that interesting. They absolutely crush the transition into Cyclone, which is great (especially Barber). The jam out of Cyclone is thematic almost from the first note. Brownstein has a great two chord progression, and Magner follows suit with some great textural leads. Barber balances things out nicely here as well, remaining patient for the appropriate amount of time to allow Magner and Brownstein to build a solid foundation. Once that foundation is built, Magner and Barber have some really phenomenal interplay. Brownstein’s driving bassline does a great job of pushing this ahead as the band coalesces into a great Munchkin ending. There’s also an ATW tease during the Munchkin composition. The first several minutes of the jam out of Munchkin do nothing for me, though there’s a neat little Thieving Magpie “tease” in this jam. The Munchkin jam has very 1950s sounding progression around the 14:30 mark that carries through the remainder of this jam. I enjoyed this section a lot, but feels like they could have done something more with it rather than just returning to Morph ending. Alter Ego has a very rock-oriented jam that just doesn’t do a whole lot for me. There’s a jam out of Alter Ego into Jigsaw which is essentially just fast noodling from Barber. Meh. There is a dub jam in Jigsaw that features Magner on the pan flute patch. Brownstein later teases Tower of Dub. This isn’t really noted anywhere, but maybe it should be? I guess he just uses this tease all of the time, so is it really a tease, or just a crutch? Anyway, this jam is forgettable. The Rock Candy jam has basically an 8-minute long ending theme jam. Why? Meh.

Highlights: Jigsaw (3*), Ladies**, Abyss**, Cyclone**

January 16, 2008

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