December 29, 2018

The initial 42 jam has portions that are frankly meandering. However, there are some exceptional portions of this jam as well. Around the 13-minute mark, when Allen dips into his e-drum bag, I think there’s a lot of neat stuff going on. Very hypnotic work, and the band seems locked in. Magner eventually winds up using his plucky xylophone synth, and sounds like he has it arpeggiated as well. Resurrection only barely escapes the Resurrection outro prior to sliding into Naeba. Naeba feels like it has potential a few times, but never really goes anywhere, again. The Pilin’ It High jam features (as per usual) excellent drumwork from Allen. However, I just don’t think that 2.0 (or 3.0, I guess) can do DNB all that well. It’s typically just uninteresting and a bit of a mess, and this is one of those times for me. Reactor begins with the usual Reactor-y jam, but eventually they drop-down to half-time and they develop a gorgeous Blissco theme. Barber’s guitarwork here is sublime, and Magner’s texturing plays off of Barber perfectly. Beautiful stuff, fellas. The next large segment is littered with mediocre playing: Orch Theme > I-Man > Gangster is all forgettable. They get into a nice pocket leaving I-Man headed back into Orch. I think they get into the Orch return jam a little too early, but it’s nice nonetheless. The jam back into Reactor is meh, and Barfly is king meh.

Highlights: 42*, Reactor**, I-Man (2)