Label: Moonjune Records, 2021

Personnel - Tim Mother: guitar, electronics; Alex Skolnick: guitar; Percy Jones: bass guitar; Kenny Grohowski: drums.

Pakt consists of four experienced fusion practitioners and progheads who gathered last year at Brooklyn’s ShapeShifter Lab for two sets (two discs) of totally improvised music grounded with a fierce sense of exploration. While fearless guitarists Alex Skolnick (Testament) and Tim Motzer (David Sylvian, Burnt Friedman) form a powerful frontline, Percy Jones (Brand X, Brian Eno) and Kenny Grohowski (Simulacrum/John Zorn, Imperial Triumphant) conserve their firm bass-and-drum hook up from start to finish.

The first disc is divided into five parts, and the opening track, “Emergence”, emerges as an ample lane of crocheted bass and stunning drum work, over which the two guitarists cut across with personality. Motzer stands out on the electro-acoustic guitar while Skolnick delivers suspended ambient chords on the electric, before the show grows energetically polyrhythmic. They stop for a relaxed dialogue that revolves around a certain melodic idea and then conclude atmospherically, surrounded by electronic sounds.

“Brothers of Energy” is an avant-prog alchemy that feels prayerful and tense, pictorial and hypnotic. It becomes delirious in its rhythmic drive, a friction turned ecstasy with the communicative guitars atop.

Geared for dealing effectively with density and dynamics, “Over Strange Lands” leaves some funk-rock perfume in the air, whereas “The Mystery” escalates to a pulse-pounding wash of funk and rock virility after flirting with ambient. While in transit, we detect guitar harmonics and tremolos, phrases with delay effect, wah-wah-infused chords, softly fingerpicked sequences and voltage-charged solos. And of course, with Jones’ fluttering bass conductivity and Grohowski’s mercurial temperament guaranteeing an excellent foundation.

The group’s grayish patchwork of progressive rock and experimental jazz continues on the second disc, whose highlights are “The Sacred Ladder” and “The Great Spirit”. The former goes bluesy and groovy in its athletic rock spiral, whereas the latter includes measured pointillism and cyclic progressions, putting on display some interesting ideas by the blistering guitarists.

Pakt’s creative energy and quality of sound can be acknowledged on this stout double album.