SUN COLORED CHAIR

A jumping off point for the brothers Coniguliaro and their Saugerties friend, guitarist Alex Verbickas, I see Sun Colored Chair as another format in which the Coniguliaro brothers are honing their skills for the next level--like tennis' Penn Circuit or ITF: the predecessors to the big time. I hear a lot of influences from the angular, complex side of progressive rock and jazz rock--King Crimson, Frank Zappa, Gentle Giant, Rush, and even The Cardiacs, but very little that feels "finished" or fully developed; they're doing a lot of experimenting with form, structure, and collaborative timing here, culminating in three longer, more mature undertakings at the end of the album.

1. "Nocturnal Blue" (1:57) great little opener--putting on display the trio's commitment to complex, multi-part, multi- tempoed structures--this one quite well put together; a complete masterpiece. (5/5)

2. "Leave" (2:23) has a bit of a punk rock feel with some Cardiacs and XTC influence. Not drummer Ben Coniguliaro's best. (Not sure I like the plasticky sound of his drum heads.) (4.375/5)

3. "Buddy's Bone" (2:52) nice display of band unity with some rather complex syncopation and time signature changes. (8.75/10)

4. "Distilled Neutrality" (4:00) 80 seconds of rather aimless noodling steps into a metal world with authority and solemnity. Reminds me a bit of Allice in Chains "Black Hole Sun" but then at 2:45 it moves into a little more of a Crimsonian motif for a stay before returning to the BHS motif for the finishing minute. (8.75/10)

5. "Sun Bubble" (2:08) very nice, melodic instrumental. (4.6667/5)

6. "Seated" (2:59) like the previous song, tandem acoustic guitars intertwining their fast-picking with the bass and drums. Then the guitars turn electric with some twang and the bass lines heavier as we traipse into what sounds like WHO and CARDIACS territory. Nice return to acoustic dominance for the third minute and then blending in with the electrics. (8.875/10)

7. "Feet Honey" (4:23) another song that feels more like a whole band experimental étude--heading in the direction of jazz-rock fusion artists MONOBODY. (8.5/10)

8. "Mystic Woe" (3:35) a soft, dreamy start that conjures up reminders of NEEDLEPOINT, ANTHONY PHILLIPS, and even some jazz-pop artists from the 1980s. I like the guitar and bass's fretless note slides. Quite lovely. (9/10)

9. "Bovine" (1:11) heavier, more abrasive, and, thankfully, tighter étude. (4.5/5)

10. "Lordlegs" (2:59) one the album's best songs. (9.25/10)

11. "Eye" (3:39) another great song that has a feel like a 1960s or 70s French film theme song; very melodic and upbeat. (9.25/10)

12. "Harmless" (1:14) full on XTC! No holds barred! I love it! (4.5/5)

13. "Die Cycle" (2:25) solid song with some tough twists and turns, all done at breakneck speed, but with melody and interest. (4.375/5)

14. "Colorless Streak" (7:17) some very complex chord progressions performed with perfected timing by the trio (over multiple tracks, I'm assuming). They even get very YES/RUSH heavy starting in the fourth minute--which feels like a practice/warmup session for the more melodic motif that begins at the end of the sixth minute. Nice Steve Howe runs at the end there! (13.5/15)

15. "Sunsnap" (7:35) an excellent sound palette proceeding to cover some very lovely melodic chord and key progressions. There are some very KING CRIMSON-like elements to the constructs here but far more melodic the KC ever gets. The "pop and rock" BLACK-MIDI-like fifth minute is very inventive, but then it turns into far more standard prog-pop song (one that is begging for vocals!). A top three song. (14/15)

16. "Daunting Abyss" (3:56) more ANT PHILLIPS-like pretty music that is multiple guitar based. I like the one guitarist's attempt to do some Hawaiian note bending. So many elements here remind me of other band's music but all are so fresh in the way they're put together. (9.333/10)

Total Time 54:33

A-/five stars; a minor masterpiece of modern progressive rock music--al instrumental. A fascinating diary of the growth and development of a group of very motivated young musicians with some great vignettes and even a few great, fully- developed prog songs at the end there.

— First review of this album —

As I've studied the musical progression of the brothers Coniguliaro and their collaborators I've noticed that several of their projects that they were kind (and confident) enough to release to the world have now been seemingly abandoned in lieu for other names and projects. The boys first foray into the musical world came under the guidance and tutelage of their musician father, Joe, using the name SUBSTANANCE for the trio from 2012 to 2018. The three MUD MOTHS releases (in 2015 & 2016)) seem to have been the brothers' first forays into music making without their father. In all of these early releases the boys' skills (instrumental, compositional, and engineering/production) were noticeably less proficient than what they have become in this, the third decade of the 21st Century. Obviously, they liked what they were doing as they continued to develop their skills (fairly rapidly after 2016), even having the courage to branch out and start collaborating with musicians outside of their family (like Alex Verbickas on the MIMES and beginning to work with one of their heroes, MATT STOBER on his IN-DREAMVIEW project) as well as inviting outside guests onto their own projects. That leads us to the birth of the SUN COLORED HAIR project. Sun Colored Hair began in 2019 and just released its second full-length album in January of 2023. I look at Sun Colored Hair as an outlet for Quinn, Ben, and Alex to grow by experimenting. Many of the songs I hear- -on both albums (which are, by the way, totally instrumental)--feel like études, i.e. musical forms set up purely to work on new ideas or to work out experimental with stylistic, textural, or temporal issues--to "stretch themselves." This feeling is reinforced by the fact that so many of the songs are brief: one to three minutes in length; even the longer songs are really just suites in which several motifs are being worked on--and in which the various methods of the "connection" of these motifs is being experimented with to the band members' satisfaction. Knowing the musics the Coniguliaro brothers have released in the past two or three years with Matt Sober, as EYELESS OWL (an outlet for Quinn's compositions) and Ben's WIPPY BONSTACK solo albums, I can see that the Sun Colored Hair songs and albums served the brothers more to develop their skills and "chops" so that they could both "play with the big boys" and realize their own individual dreams and goals. I look at Ben's second Wippy Bonstack release from 2022 and marvel at the maturation of his skills and confidence, but now, after getting to know these Sun Colored Chair albums, I see how they served as an incredibly important tool and stepping stone to his (and his brother Quinn's) marvelous growth and development.

1. "The Birth of the Sun" (12:28) a suite of interesting motifs, two major ones within which several other subtly different variations are experimented with (some of which are Genesis- and Brand X-like). (22/25)

2. "Bite the Diamond" (5:23) I hear the sounds of Dif Juz, Frank Zappa, Gentle Giant, and even Ant Phillips in this one. (8.75/10)

3. "Honest Antenna" (3:33) Rush, David Sancious, Dream Theater, and even some of the 1990s prog metal pioneers feel present in this one. (8.75/10)

4. "Hand Castles" (4:10) a gentle, almost sedate sound experiment using a kind of 1980s pop jazzy sound palette. Very nice. (9/10)

5. "Sun Melt / Elated Bump" (10:38) six minutes of very gentle, pleasant pastoral music that remind me a bit of Dev Townsend's acoustic work on his album Ki. Ny favorite song on the album. (18.25/20)

6. "Sungasm" (8:45) More 12-string and acoustic guitar layered chord play over syncopated stop-and-go drum and xylophone play. For the first two-and-a-half minutes it is gentle and fairly melodic, but then it breaks into a frenetic CARDIACs-like multi-dimensional piece before settling into a few other proggy motifs. Very nice, pacifying finishing theme. Another top three song. (18/20)

7. "Rainbow Falls" (4:42) as if Ant Phillips and Fred Frith collaborated on a song. Another favorite--but more cuz I'm a sucker for any of Ant's Private Parts & Pieces. (9.125/10)

8. "Tired Eyed Iron Boot Boy" (3:08) a very nice "complete" song that feels like an Allman Brothers attempt at a prog instrumental. My third favorite song on the album. (8.875/10)

Total Time 52:47

B+/4.5 stars; an excellent addition to any prog lover's music collection--especially if you enjoy your prog without singing or lyrics.

The Coniguliaro brothers have built up a reputation for creating highly complicated and constantly developing music. However, unlike their other band Wyxz, which leans towards in-your-face dissonance and noise, this project has more mercy for the uninitiated listener, leaning more towards the poppier, punkier side of math rock with warm, mostly undistorted guitars and a more traditional sense of tonality, which is not to say that this music goes all that easy on the ears because it usually goes off in all sorts of directions at lightning-speed and can be hard to even wrap your head around.

This album's biggest obstacle is the limitations of the band's own format as a basic guitar-bass-drums lineup: while some tracks do have accompanying keyboard and pitched percussion parts, the production sounds a mite flat and is often in danger of becoming slightly monotonous, but the band thankfully manages to mostly overcome this trapping by varying their approaches and the moods they try to tackle. Some songs sound like broken, stuttering deconstructions of indie rock songs (such as "Feet Honey" and "Leave", the latter of which has a catchy main melody and a cute jazzy outro), others sound like manic note sequences that are constantly reinventing themselves; "Buddy's Bone" is probably the highlight of the album with its very pretty main theme serving as something to hold on to amidst the knotted up chaos of muted guitar lines, expertly played by Alex Verbickas and immaculately backed up by the rhythm section. "Die Cycle" is also great, with its melodic motifs that are continually restated and further developed upon. "Sun Bubble" is probably the simplest song on the album but it's nice and has a melancholic, introspective feel to it, and "Lordlegs" distinguishes itself with its surprising vibraphone break that reminds me of Pierre Moerlen.

Most songs are very compact, clocking in at between one and three minutes: they get in and get out. Only near the end of the album does the band try to create two seven-minute quasi-suites. "Colorless Streak" starts off haunting and slow before embarking on a journey towards a heavy, driving coda with a guitar solo, a rare moment of (presumably) spontaneous improvisation in the middle of these meticulously planned-out constructions. "Sunsnap" is again more simple, going from an easy-going, slightly gloomy section in 7/8 to an incredibly triumphant coda in 3/4 (very normal time signatures by this band's standards).

Not every attempt at something different works too well. "Distilled Neutrality" is a not too interesting doom-metallish piece interrupted by some generic riffage halfway through, and "Mystic Woe" is a percussionless song centred around acoustic guitar which just sort of goes nowhere for three minutes, and feels superfluous given the inclusion of a very sweet, mellow country-ish opening to the final track "Daunting Abyss". Considering the album's overall quality however I'm willing to grant them these few missteps since they don't break the flow of the album too much anyway. This is a very enjoyable listen in addition to a stunning technical feat.