BONDAGE FRUIT V - SKIN

Sub-genre: Zeuhl (slipping further from traditional Zeuhl with each album, which is only important from a categorical perspective)
For Fans of: King Crimson, hint of Mahavishnu influence
Vocal Style: None
Guitar Style: Bluesy to jazzy electric and acoustic
Keyboard Style: none (somewhere is a sampler, but I have yet to identify it)
Percussion Style: Dual, both percussionists play a standard rock set with one jumping on vibes and trap drum.
Bass Style: Upright electric, sometimes picked with long droning sections, sometimes bowed
Other Instruments: Vilaha, mandolin

Summary: Skin is Bondage Fruit's least accessible album, both from a product availability as well as from a musical direction standpoint. Instead of the usual collection of varied style 6-7 songs that listeners of Bondage Fruit have come to expect, Skin puts 49 minutes of music into 2 songs. The title track is almost ½ hour of what are basically two themes. The first being a very slow two note bass progression that becomes a single ambient drone. This is occasionally backed by percussive flurries. The other theme is a large resolution chord sequence. The structure is such that it is hard to identify any traditional sense of verse/chorus structure. One is reminded of a drawn out King Crimson improvisation with little dissonance. Frasco opens with mesmerizing mandolin and vilaha, but finds the bands Mahavishnu Orchestra influence in about the 8th minute. An enjoyable jazzy sequence closes the song into a single focus of feedback. The whole album is less reliant on vibes, so important to the bands identity, as their other albums. The Eastern flavor is also hidden, despite the instrumentation present at the beginning of Frasco.

Final Score: This is a good album that most progheads will enjoy, but probably only essential if you are a Bondage Fruit completist as I am. This is the BF album I reach for last. Solid 3 stars.

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