Label: Ropeadope, 2020
Personnel - Aaron Parks: piano, synthesizers, Wurlitzer, Rhodes, celeste, vibraphone, glockenspiel, chimes, voice; Greg Tuohey: guitar; David Ginyard: bass; Tommy Crane: drums.
The second installment of pianist Aaron Parks’ Little Big project offers considerable improvements over the group’s debut. The quartet continues to embrace an organic blend of styles gleefully expressed with elements of jazz, electronica, folk and some psychedelia.
Both “Attention, Earthlings”, the record’s first track, and “My Mistake” are propelled by arresting, streamlined rhythmic pulses. Yet, while the former relies on a soulful piano harmonization and crystalline guitar melodies, the latter draws a mysterious magnetism that comes from darker piano voicings and ululating guitar cries, an inexhaustible source of remorse and anguish.
“Where Now?”, one of the two fully improvised pieces on the album, feels like a dub exercise underlined by a groovy funk-hop rhythm. A vibey experimentalism is pulled off nicely here.
A few tunes will let the listener suspended in their soft gravitational auras, usually centered in melodies wrapped in reverie, yearning and wistfulness. While the notion of space steadily plays a key role, the group always finds room for improvisation, usually explored by Parks and guitarist Greg Tuohey.
Commanded by a charming rhythmic touch, “Here” offers satisfying moments of relaxation and melancholy. An effortless deep bass interlocks with the moving piano chords in a formidable way. “Solace” - a melodious poem introduced by jazzy piano - was put together with a backdrop of vulnerability and hope, while “The Shadow and the Self”, featuring effective vocals from Parks, is a ripe, unhurried, wistful waltz influenced by the music of Pat Metheny Group and Blonde Redhead, as well as the work of philosopher Carl Jung.
The pianist disclosed the influence of another philosopher - the Armenian-born George Gurdjieff - on the cinematic “Dreams of a Mechanical Man”, a visually suggestive piece whose elegant storytelling progresses with a sense of fascination and enigma.
In turn, pieces like “The Storyteller”, the odd-metered “The Ongoing Pulse of Iseness” and “Friendo” are more fluid in rhythm. In the latter, an amiable funk joins the rock harmonic aesthetics, with bassist David Ginyard and drummer Tommy Crane in perfect consonance.
Sometimes paradoxical, sometimes purely logical, the music of Little Big won’t make you indifferent.
Grade B+
Favorite Tracks:
02 - Here ► 08 - Dreams of a Mechanical Man ► 09 - My Mistake