Esoteric / Antenna (label)
15 November 2015 (released)
28 November 2015
It would probably be easier to namecheck the artists and bands Dave Sturt hasn’t played with than those he has - his list of sessions, bands, compositions et al is remarkable but all talks to him as not being just a bass player. And this is NOT a typical bass players’ solo album.
The tone and mood of the album is all contemplative, possibly about exploration both in the head and without. Slow and considered in the main it seems to draw you in and force you to look deeply into both the music and your own view of it. Sometimes unsettling and sometimes utterly peaceful, you cannot help but be taken down pathways of the music to a place that Sturt wants you to be.
The opening track, ‘Mirage’, starts with drops of bass notes, shimmering and changing while other sounds flitter in and out until the theme opens wide and the main bass line hoves into view. It has all the feel of a walk through a desert while discovering little musical gems on your travels but there is none of the sense of the unexpected or out of place – everything fits perfectly into its place, not predicted but completely fitting into the heart of the number. It is completely of a piece with track 2 ‘Transcendence’ so that you are now within the music and not a passive listener.
In his liner notes Sturt says that “… this is not a demonstration of virtuosity” and there isn’t a single moment where you feel that the music is showing off the musical talents on show but there is a remarkable amount of skill and feel in the playing and the compositions and the quality of the musicianship is an essential part of the whole. Music by virtuosos but not showing their talents meaninglessly.
Sturt has a number of very fine collaborators on the album – Steve Hillage, Bill Nelson, Daevid Allen (his last recording before his recent death), Fabio Golfetti, Theo Travis and others – but the music is Sturt’s and this is a solo album in the best sense.
It is unthinkable to take tracks in isolation and I found myself listening all through the album time and again. And time and again I found myself emerging at the end of the album completely disorientated to find I was still in the place that I had entered.
Both beautiful and emotional and an album that is one of the moments of 2015.
