Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Pat Mastelotto & Markus Reuter
Label: Tempus Fugit
Release: 2017
Duration: 35:11
Rating: 5/5
At the end of this past March, another seriously fascinating release landed on the music market. Its creators are Pat Mastelotto and Markus Reuter: a wonderfully wacked-out King Crimson drummer and an even more wacked-out inventor of the »Touch« guitar. The two know each other well from Stick Men and The Crimson ProjecKt, both with enormous mileage, both with unbelievable technical chops and layered musical vision, with a focal point that never swerves for a second from the free-spirited horizon, one that generates an absolutely artistic, unburdened drift through the expanses of undiscovered musical dimensions.
The album, called »FACE«, took a whole nine years to make. Well, the letters in the word FACE are the chords F, A, C and E, or… the devil only knows where the album title comes from. I can tell you right away that, as far as weaving musical collages goes, the album is as multifaceted as it gets. Maybe even more so than the eye of the most highly developed order of insects. There’s just one track on it. But it runs over 35 minutes. Sixteen musicians play on the album, among them the »infamous« Steven Wilson. You’ve probably already concluded from the opening lines of this read that »FACE« is an album of totally eclectic nature and unique musical content. No more, no less.
Just as the progressive music of this album is progressive in the true sense of the word (advanced), Mastelotto and Reuter also strive to grow personally in a progressive (advanced) way. Developing this album was a unique challenge for them, and they wanted to reach the finish line as even richer and more mature artists. The album was so demanding that Mastelotto and Reuter spent the first three days in the studio doing nothing but entering data to create the necessary algorithms, before they even got to the first played notes in the recording process, which ran between 2007 and 2011. That way they recorded over 200 audio tracks, to which guest musicians later contributed their skills, either by playing on cue the parts written by Reuter and Mastelotto, or by soaring off toward their own improvisational figures.
Because »FACE« is such a special album, its content is hard to put into words. You run out of them. But the key fact is that it will definitely pull onto the same deck all the progressive rock gourmets and enthusiasts who are still demanding, as well as everyone who wants the best that experimental cross-genre fusion can deliver, the kind that can’t stand any artistic restriction whatsoever.
»FACE« is much easier to consume considering that a composition like this is such a hugely complex piece of work. That’s the essence of all its appeal and extraordinary beauty. Even though it’s a concise piece with a strictly conceptualized approach to composing, the way it unfolds over these 35 minutes is totally spontaneous, with unexpected switches between motivic and rhythmic textures and keys. All the shades of the many sonic gradations in such a multifaceted musical landscape are completely fluid and speak to you with exceptional listenability. The album is instrumental, the content carries an ethereal, cerebral moment, and its musicality creeps by itself through the aura, soul and body of the consumer, unobtrusively luring and teasing you into a unique musical world. On a journey into the heart of a unique musical adventure.
On »FACE« you’ll find common ground if you love the gently inviting folk-Celtic musicality of Mike Oldfield, plus an incredible dose of »Krimsonesque« stuff, which, with its demanding figures of broken rhythms and atonal lines, lives perfectly inside the musical body of a 35-minute composition. Here and there the story is joined by the soulfully rattling sound of the bass guitar, evoking the Rickenbacker pioneering of the late Yes bassist Chris Squire. World music influences are added everywhere too, reaching all the way to the lands of the Far East. Elements of experimental jazz figures are tucked into the content. Besides Reuter’s famous Touch guitar, which saturates the album and which gets a contrasting counterweight from the picturesque drumming skills of Pat Mastelotto, who once again astonishes with his spontaneous creativity, you have to count the painting of the landscape with woodwinds and brass (trombone, clarinet, saxophone, trumpet,…), as well as a plethora of keyboard sounds, where even imitations of the French accordion and the Mellotron are not missing. Ethereal vocal choirs are added to the whole story as well, working as an extra instrument and as an exceptional means of contrasting moods and dramatic upheavals between them. There’s no shortage of musical associations, and in this story fans of adventurous Canterbury “wackiness,” headed by Gong and Soft Machine, will also find themselves, as will lovers of the unforgettable Zappa days.
In short, one track, one story! And what a story. Unheard of. Idiosyncratic. Boundlessly charming and unique. It offers a drift into a world without time and space, where you can discover for a long, long time the beauty of boundless expanses of unique sonic landscapes, just as you can lift the veil, layer by layer, from yourself too and grow wholly with such music. It sounds orthodox, paradoxical, but it’s a kind of medicine that only a rare few can understand! A challenge that begets a challenge, widening consciousness and spirit.
Lineup
Markus Reuter – “Touch” guitar, bass guitar, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, melodica, piano, banjo, Bulbul Tarang, Omnichord, synthesizer
Pat Mastelotto – drums, electronic drums, percussion
GUEST MUSICIANS;
Fabio Trentini – electric guitar, guitar synthesizer, fretless bass
Tim Motzer – electric guitar, acoustic guitar, ukulele
Mark Williams – mandocello, fretless bass, vocals
Monica Champion – clarinet, saxophone, vocals
Steven Wilson – vocal chords
Annette Franzen – violin
Adrian Benavides – electric guitar
Michael Mordecai – trombone
Marcus Graf – trumpet
Chrysta Bell – vocals
Brad Houser – bass clarinet
Luca Calabrese – French horn
Michael Bernier – bow
Danny Wilde – vocals
Yoshi Hampl – vocals
Renée Stieger – vocals
Production
Markus Reuter, Pat Mastelotto & Fabio Trentini
Tracklist
1. FACE
