IAN CARR'S NUCLEUS: ROOTS

Ian and company are on a roll: kicking out two albums of original, experimental material in the same year!

1. "Roots" (9:24) picking up where Labyrinth left off with some pensive, spacious, deliberate Miles Davis-like music in which the musicians are slowly allowed to release their pent up energy. This song, however, is a lot tighter, a lot more organized, and a lot more spacious than Labyrinth's more chaotic "Naxos" (probably due to there being only one drummer, one keyboard player, one trumpeter, and one sax player as opposed to double those on Labyrinth). Mauritian guitarist Jocelyn Pitchen makes his presence known beneath the trumpet in the fifth and sixth minutes: she sounds more like Chris Spedding or John Tropea than the burgeoning new breed of heavily-effected jazz-rock guitarists. Ian's heavily-treated muted trumpet at the end sounds a lot like a wah-wah-ed electric rhythm guitar! (17.75/20)

2. "Images" (4:55) a mellow island-smoothy for New Zealand-born vocalist Joy Yates to sing over--here making her world premier in studio recorded form. She has a voice that kind of crosses sultry Annette Peacock with "Midnight at the Oasis'" Maria Muldaur. Clive Thacker's Caribbean percussion coupled with Roger Sutton's smooth bass lines and Brian Smith's flutes and Dave MacRae (Joy's future husband)'s rich electric piano makes for a perfect vehicle for this song of siren-like seduction. (8.875/10)

3. "Caliban" (4:35) bass and guitar team up to present a complex weave over Clive Thacker's drums and Aureo De Souza's racing conga play before Ian and Brian's multi-tracked horns enter and fill things out. Jocelyn Pitchen then strays into fiery guitar soloing while Aureo switches to timbales and the horns make their presence stronger and more insistent. Too bad Jocelyn chooses to use so little in the way of sound effects or enhancement, otherwise this would be a pretty cool song. (8.75/10)

4. "Whapatiti" (3:23) an up-tempo celebratory island song that sees two whole-band themes being alternated equally over which Brian Smith's soprano saxophone and Dave MacRae's percussive electric piano cover with their soloing. Spirited! (8.75/10)

5. "Capricorn" (4:01) slow-moving jazz coming from everybody except Dave MacRae's active electric piano. In the second minute the band shifts into a second gear: this one more bass-and-drum groove oriented, though still slow and mellow--though the groove becomes amplified by Brian's soprano sax, Jocelyn's rhythm guitar play and Ian's wah- wah-ed muted trumpet, all creating the effect as if it has sped up and, of course, not stayed so mellow. (8.875/10)

6. "Odokamona" (3:24) another song that gets its start from being bled over from the end of the previous one (the studio session must have been tight--and well rehearsed--with no time for breaks and resets--or else the engineers & producers thought the flow of the album should be continuous). The motif established here is like something from a Grand Funk rock album that's been thoroughly run over by an impromptu invasion of rogue guerrilla jazz musicians who, apparently, go from studio to studio, performing coup d'états in each recording session before leaving as quickly and brazenly as they came. (8.75/10)

7. "Southern Roots And Celebration" (7:43) opening with some very gentle, subtly-tinkled and heavily-echoed electric piano play that is supported by some intermittent bass notes (keyboard generated). This goes on for 1:15 before some other sounds are contributed, earning the music a blues-rock categorization. In the second minute Dave MacRae lets up on the echo and settles into a pleasant chord sequence with Jocelyn's rhythm guitar while the horn "section" and percussionists slowly establish their own patterns. enter a ocarina-like bamboo flute in the fifth minute over the one- chord motif and you have a bit of a vamp for horn-supported ocarina until 5:25 when piano, guitar, and bass introduce a new pattern that Clive, Aureo, and the hornists solidify and move into a more hard-driving blues-rock motif. (13.125/15)

Total Time: 37:25

While I liked the way the album started out (especially with the contributions of Joy Yates), I am disappointed with the rock and blues-rock strains and roots of the rest of the songs--as well as the inconsistent "flow."

B/four stars; an album of solid and well-performed songs that disappoints when compared to the previous albums Ian had supervised.

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