Apparently, we will have to bake a big pie for the smart ass that decided to leave the windows open. He just let them open and ran away like a chicken, while I was minding my own business with this special album over here.
It is equally sensual and irresistible, this exotic combination of oriental flavors, twisted in a free jazz form, doctor Miller’s tools of the trade for the last 50 years, all mixed up with the ethnic jazz instrumentation of the British music collective The Heliocentrics. As for them, the orbits of hip-hop, funk, jazz, psychedelic, electronic, avante-garde and ethnic music all revolve around “The One”. Also count the award-winning collaboration with Ethio jazz Godfather Mulatu Astatke and it’s a matter of course that we deal with a serious go-up-the-wall recording. As for this matter, the album was recorded in 2010, over half a year, from December to May. It was recorded and mixed at Quatermass Studio in London and finished right when the spring arrived.
Dr. Miller is also known as Kurosh Ali Khan, a name he used while hosting a prime-time television show in Tehran, Iran in the 1970s. The program was known as Kurosh Ali Khan va Dustan, or Kurosh Ali Khan and Friends, a variety show with music.
The album opens with ”Electricone”, an excellent piece of fresh and voluptuous contemporary jazz melted in an oriental sound that reaches a Sun Ra inspired alternative galaxy. ”Nava” continues the lush atmosphere created, and is for ”Mandala” to set up a darker mood, with a superb rhythm to go adrift. ”Spiritual Jazz” is the longest song on the album and hides an evocative universe of lost loves, non-sense philosophies, over thought considerations, deliberations and contemplations, trivial oddities; it’s all right here.
”Bali Bronze” swims even deeper into your brain, revealing a luxurious two pieces song, where the deep acoustic bass of Jake Ferguson meets the clarinet, piano and antoor splendid work of dr. Miller and the drums and bells of restless UK drummer Malcom Catto. To completely penetrate the music to the essence of it, you would need to listen to this record at least three times, since it’s very complex and hides way too many secrets to be approached sketchily. ”Lloyd's Diatribe” is the only song where you can hear Miller’s voice, over a tremendous bass clarinet played by James Arben from The Heliocentrics and the dangerous piano of Oliver Parfitt.
Don’t miss this album, highly recommended!
Tracklist:
1. Electricone2. Nava
3. Mandala
4. Spiritual Jazz
5. Bali Bronze
6. Fantasia Pt. 1
7. Modality
8. Salendro
9. Pari Ru
10. Lloyd's Diatribe
11. Fantasia Pt. 2
12. Chahargah
13. Sunda Sunset