OUTRUNNER

When an artist releases as much music as the French musician Sébastien Gramond does, it is bound to come at the risk of inconsistent effort. Before moving onto the music here, it should be known that I regard Gramond as a brilliant fusion guy for jazz and rock music, but his talents are often too far stretched across projects to consistently churn out inspired work. So while the talent may be still there, it's an album like 'Outrunner' that demonstrates that attempting to work so quickly through albums comes at a price. Generally aimless noodling over repetitive jazz backing tracks quickly defines what Gramond's work here is. An album saved from complete disrepair only by the man's skill as an instrumentalist, I would have to say this is an album that has sorely disappointed me.

Kicking things off with 'Furuncle Dabbler', 'dabble' is the real keyword here. It is a very keys driven track, and features a few moments where the instruments really come together to make something that sounds more than improvisation. Leading the entire song is a pseudo-organ sound, which continues to play with on-the-spot ideas, but ultimately the tinny sound of the keyboard gets old not even a quarter of the way into the song. The next track 'A Knotty Rainbow' is slightly better, although it features only one riff that repeats itself throughout the entire track. 'Stuffbox' may indeed be the highlight of this rather weak output, beginning with some crunchy organ sounds but building a few extra harmonies to go with the fuzz. This is short lived and fairly unrealized however. The final two tracks (with the final track being a whopping twenty minutes of the same thing) reprise the sound to some extent of the album's opener; wandering backing tracks over noodling lead key solos.

Were it not for the fact that Gramond is a talented musician and can improvise relatively well, this album would be one for the turkey yard.

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