PRESENT SIMPLE

Young Russian keyboardist, SVETLANA MARINCHENKO is a name you might want to remember. Not only is she a force to be reckoned with but with this, her debut album, she has managed to not only produce wonderfully engaging music, incite truly superlative performances from her collaborators, but release the single best sound engineered album--of any kind--that I have ever heard come out of Russia or any of the former Soviet republics. I'm assuming that we owe this to the amazing vision and ear of chief composer, Svetlana, herself, but also to the skill and ear of collaborator/engineer Kira Malevskaya. Well done! It is so refreshing to finally hear a record from Russia that is equal in sound and compositional quality to that that we in the West have been used to. Plus that has got to be one of the coolest album cover photos ever! Much of the music has a sound quite similar to that of the music being made in the 1970s and 1980s by artists like JOE SAMPLE and the band he came from, THE CRUSADERS, and the likes of DAVE GRUISIN and his GRP Records label as well as LONNIE LISTON SMITH--all of which has been carried forward and perpetuated by the "smooth jazz" movement with artists like Boney James and Rick Braun among many, many others. Funky, melodic, downbeat jazz, with groovy, highly cool, masterful/virtuosic soloists--all of which can be extended to include the music and artists contributing to these songs. Special recognition going out to bassist extraordinaire, Anton Davidyants, as well as to horn player, Roman Kvachlov, guitarist Martin Miller, sax player Dmitry Tsepilov, flutist Ekaterina Chistohina, and even drummer Peter Ivshin (whose snare and toms sound a bit too hollow and short-gated for my liking--except on most of "Moonlight Therapy").

1. "Not Available" (9:59) (8/10); 2. "Blues for Boss" (6:22) (8/10); 3. "Dangerous Connection" (8:29) (8/10); 4. "Love Space" (8:49) (10/10); 5. "Spring's Movement" (6:23) (9/10); 6. "Moonlight Therapy" (8:11) with it's purposely old- (vinyl-)sounding piano intro and nice brushwork by drummer Peter Ivshin (9/10); the funk'n'groovin' weave of 7. "Railway" (6:43) (the most proggy song on the album) (9/10), and 8. "Blues 'n' Funk" (7:13) (7/10).

A solid 4-plus star album of consistency and clarity, included here mostly for its unusually distinctive production quality and high caliber musicianship. I'm still not sure this should be included in a "Progressive Rock" music compendium, but it's definitely worth shouting out about! The best Jazz-Rock/Fusion album of 2015!