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Cadence - Severence Review

Michael Rosenstein, Cadence, January 2004.

Slater, McMahon and Barker are a trio on Band of FIve Names’ Severance.  Here, the implied groove of the previous session [Strobe Coma Virgo] is stretched out and slowed down to dream-like atmospherics.  The pieces seem to waft by with an ethereal sense of movement rather than any real momentum.  Slater’s trumpet is used to hang stretched phrases and long held notes against the shimmering blips and low groans of electronics and keyboard.  Barker slips back and forth between kit and electronic percussion, often just laying out the slow toll of a resonating tom or the looped sizzle of stuttering ride cymbal.  McMahon’s piano and keyboards break into mirror shards.  Though using the language of jazz and fusion music, these are improvisations that float outside of any jazz sense of structure.  Instead, flow and duration become the improvisational forms; tension and release comes from piled densities and textural contrasts; resolve is rarely hinted at and slow fades are more often utilized.