Label: Yestereve Records, 2025
Personnel - Jacob Garchik; trombone; Brandon Seabrook: guitar; Mary Halvorson: guitar; Jonathan Goldberger: guitar, baritone guitar; Vinnie Sperrazza: drums + Ava Mendoza: guitar; Sean Moran: guitar; Miles Okazaki: guitar; Josh Dion: drums.
Trombonist and composer Jacob Garchik returns with his eccentrically futuristic, hard-nosed collective Ye Olde, a guitar-centric sci-fi jazz act featuring two quartets - Ye Olde and Simulacrus (the resurrected version of the former) - inspired by the Omega Point, Spinal Tap, fascinating concepts in science and sci-fi, and Hungarian contemporary classical composer György Ligeti. Ye Olde 2: At The End of Time arrives a decade after the release of Ye Olde (Yestereve, 2015), prompting a smile of wonderment as it channels a distinctive compositional style that feels entirely unique.
“One Can Only Go Up” opens the album in scalar form, with a rising two-octave scale played on on Barndon Seabrook’s 12-string electric guitar. Multiple layers accumulate with both power and logic, and Mary Halvorson solos over a rock-driven backbeat. This is fusion in the truest sense—drawing on Mahavishnu Orchestra, contemporary classical, and avant-garde jazz. Garchik closes the piece with an abrasive improvisation. A similar concept drives “Omega Point”, only this time the scale moves downward. This singable, euphoric 8-beat sequence later stretches by an extra beat, following scorching solos from Miles Okazaki and Ava Mendoza over two contrasting textures.
The masterful harmonic turns of “Transcending Time” take shape through the pointillistic regularity of Seabrook’s acoustic guitar and Garchik’s delayed trombone tremolos. It unfolds as a 10-beat cycle, a medieval folk-rock meditation that recalls King Crimson and Jethro Tull, but heavier. It reaches a climax in heavy-metal fashion, with Jonathan Goldberger’s baritone guitar executed with unswerving tenacity. “Exo Microbiology” boasts a punk-like theme that is both complex and danceable. Seabrook and Goldberger improvise, the former with energetic atonality, the latter with jagged, shredding force.
Embracing a glorious chill-out transformation, “Dyson Spheres” is anchored by Vinnie Sperrazza’s syncopated, downtempo rhythm, with Halvorson’s sparse chords layered above. The delivers a solo that proves it’s not only about technique and effects but also about emotion. Before the funk-rock vibes of the Zappa-esque “Ye Olde vs Simulacrus”, where the two quartets interact in battle, there is still room for 16th-century Italian composer Giorgio Mainerio’s “Caro Ortolano”, a stubby church music piece reimagined here as a rock fanfare.
Forging experimental and transformative paths in modern music, Garchik takes risks and wins, achieving new heights of both virtuosity and imagination. Ye Olde 2: At The End of Time is a revolutionary album that lifts us out of this world and into an adventurous future realm.
Favorite Tracks:
01 - One Can Only Go Up ► 02 - Transcending Time ► 05 - Dyson Spheres ► 07 - Omega Point