Advanced Harmonic Devilry

My two favorite music humans, Björk and Allan Holdsworth, keep going further and further out into the universe of sound.

Actually let's add Arca to that list shall we? Wow.

So, Allan Holdsworth is releasing a new album for those of us who are fronting up the money for it. The first track he's released is called “Earth” and it's 10 minutes of demonic trickster chords on the synthaxe, with insane drumming...there is a version with and a version without solos. Hard to decide which I love best, because the version without shows you the extraordinary timbral nuances of the Synthaxe, which seems to be playing a different kind of sound with every chord...and there are a lot of chords...it's almost to the point of atonality, pure and simple, right at the very edge of the Solar System of harmony. Maybe it's far out at the edge of the Oort Cloud.

That kind of thing. There is something powerfully, powerfully erotic about it. Holdsworth's music seems to be heading out further into the strangeness he's been exploring for over thirty five years. At full throttle.

As CASE says in Interstellar, “Maximum velocity achieved...prepare to fire escape thrusters...”

And as TARS points out a bit later, “Somewhere...in their...fifth dimension they...saved us...”

And as Cooper says somewhat earlier, but now we are outside time so he's saying it now, simultaneous with the other sayings, “Everybody ready to say goodbye to our...Solar System?”

And as Romilly observes at that moment: “To our galaxy...”

If your being could do with an advanced cleaning, send Holdsworth a bit of money via Pledge Music.

And: who dares to play drums like that? One shouldn't be allowed to add that many grace notes before a note. It's a riff, but it's a solo, at the exact same time. Oh, I know, it's Virgil Donati.

And you have never heard Jimmy Johnson play like that. You just haven't.

It should't have been called “Earth” maybe. Maybe it should have been called “Pale Blue Dot.” aka the last time you see Earth before you leave the Solar System.

I admire anyone who can keep their head together enough to operate the technical instruments that deliver those sounds to us at that distance at that musical extremity.

As my man Cooper observes, correcting CASE who admonishes him with “Cooper, there's no point in using our fuel to chase--”:

“Analyze the Endurance's spin.”