December 31, 2014

The first 7-11 jam is about as boring a type 1 jam as they come. The second 7-11 jam begins as the typical trance jam, and has a dub section in the middle before heading back to a trance jam and the end of Reactor. I think parts of this are really nice, particularly the dub portion and the part immediately following. Parts of the AC2B first jam sound like they are teasing Tricycle, or faking it. Most of this jam is pretty boring to me. The first several minutes of the Crystal Ball jam are pretty aimless, but they eventually wind up in a fairly cohesive dance jam. I don’t think the theme they develop is necessarily all that interesting, but at least they seem to be listening to each other. Near the end of this, it sounds like they’re thinking about heading into a Confrontation ending, but ultimately they veer at the last minute and go toward AC2B. I wouldn’t call this a tease or fakeout, but it’s bizarrely close to a Confrontation ending jam. The second AC2B jam is not great, not terrible. Pretty typical AC2B ending jam.

The Basis intro is very good. They develop a multi-chord theme almost from the very first note. Even though this is a pretty commonly used progression, I think the melodic choices are really nice. Both Barber and Magner are in very good form here. They botch part of the composition, which always weirds me out. You’ve been playing this song for 25 years now. Shouldn’t be this hard. As far as the jam itself, I like the jam for the most part, but they get into Magpie way too quickly. Give it some time to breathe. The Lai jam is incredibly generic. Helix is dark and dirty from the beginning. This is dissonant, ominous, and very cool. Sounds almost like they’re headed toward a Nughuffer ending, at times. Abyss is quite a bit more straightforward, but still solid.

The jam in Highwire is pretty mundane. Magner has some great melodies, but basically every other aspect is generic in this one. Abraxas is same story, different jam. It feels like Magner has something cool working in the minor key section of the jam, but after the shift to major for the return to Highwire, this gets much less interesting. The jam out of A Fifth of Beethoven is pretty typical funk stuff, although it does sound a bit like a Suspended in the Air jam for parts. Still meh. The Gangster jam gets into some nice major key jamming. I wouldn’t quite call this Blissco, but it’s sort of Blissco-adjacent, and I generally enjoy it. The first RLH jam sounds a LOT like Kamaole Sands. This is pretty short, and just never fully develops. The RLH second jam is the typical minor key four-on-the-floor jam. Parts of this are okay, but overall nothing here ever really grabbed me. Fiddler is fine.

Highlights: 7-11 (2), Basis (Intro*), Helix*, Abyss, Gangster