Label: Earshift Music, 2025
Personnel - Jeremy Rose: tenor and soprano saxophones, bass clarinet, effects; Novak Manojlovic: keyboard, synthesizers; Ben Carey: modular synthesizer; Tully Ryan: drums.
Sidney-based saxophonist Jeremy Rose, founder of the chilled-out, eclectic band The Vampires and the Earshift Music label, releases his second album with the Project Infinity, a live-recorded and fully improvised set of urban-lite grooves and bright horn licks that sound anything but academic. Rose’s 26th release as a leader is a meditation on time, motion, and memory, fusing ambient and electronic in a post-jazz setting.
Teamed with keyboardist Novak Manojlovic, modular synth artist Ben Carey, and drummer Tully Ryan, Rose presents the first three tracks as a panoramic sweep. “Full Moon” sets the tone with a suspenseful, minimalistic interplay comprising rattling noises, terse yet throbbing bass sounds, elongated synth vibrations, and late-arriving fluttering saxophone lines. “Futures” operates in both contemplative and exploratory modes with firm drumming and surging waves of energy from the saxophone. “The Great Wave Off Kanagawa” thrives on motivic electronic loops and Ryan’s compulsively syncopated drum work. The rhythm team weaves a spacious, emotion-rich ambient texture over which Rose unfolds blistering saxophone narratives.
“Resonance” nods to hip-hop through its beat, adding colorful synth beams and passionate bass clarinet wails. At times, bass notes take the lead with a straight-eight feel, but Ryan disrupts it through rhythmic displacement. He gradually pushes the groove into more complex patterns as extra synth layers accumulate. “Perpetual Motion” lives up to its title but with nuance in the flow. Delivered with full-tilt abandon and driven by a thrilling pulse, the piece moves in fusion fashion, partly due to warped effects and the instinctive grit of the sax improvisation.
There’s room for playfulness and curiosity, and Infinity II never sounds clinical. On “Tides”, the earthy tones of the bass clarinet dominate over glitchy tapestries and punctuated, elliptical constellations of sound. The jagged, punchy drumming heightens the vitality. “From Now On” closes the album on a relaxing note, gently propelled by a crisp backbeat.
Rose and his quartet layer sounds in ways that reveal emotional truth. Even the most fragile moments carry understated currents that prevent them from drifting into the merely ethereal. Infinity II, attentively mixed by recording engineer Richard Belkner, is a competent and exploratory ambient outing for this era.
Favorite Tracks:
03 - The Great Wave Off Kanagawa ► 06 - Impermanence ► 09 - Tides