When they teamed up for 2014's Room, avant-garde guitarist Nels Cline and traditionalist (of sorts) Julian Lage explored how their varied approaches could merge. That record played with harmonics, tones and styles, fitting attitudes together and seeing what would happen as two artists trod into each other's territories. Although a complete statement, Room could also be seen as an initial foray, and now the two guitarists have expanded into the Nels Cline 4 quartet, adding bassist Scott Colley (who also played on Lage's recent Modern Lore) and drummer Tom Rainey. With the expansion, the artists take on more varied experiments, playing with some jazz tropes along the way.
The album opens with a chord almost straight from Cream's “I Feel Free” (but too dissonant for that), then surprisingly moves into a Rainey solo. While the album contains plenty of guitar heroics, those first moments of “Furtive” state that Currents, Constellations means to be a group study. As the piece gets underway, Cline provides the theme, but Colley's bass drives the performance. He plays linear lines, but they don't pause, and its his furtiveness more than anything that creates the mood.
“Swing Ghost '59” takes a playful look back at jazz. The band swings — really — before completely undercutting that sound. You hear something like Glenn Miller for a second, but not for long. The trick lies in the piece's title: naming a swing track for the year where jazz took major strides into more experimental approaches and demanding compositions doesn't bode well for those dotted eighth notes. The group follows this track with “Imperfect 10,” the sort of piece that sounds more at home in Cline's oeuvre, mixing its jazz with rock influences.
With “Amenette,” Cline and Lage revisit their own history, reworking a track from Room. Given an extra two minutes and strong drumming from Rainey, the previously bright track takes on an underground feel. “River Mouth (Parts 1 and 2),” rather than smoking in the basement, moves to an expansive outside. Cline handles the lead guitar over Lage's patterns, though sometimes joining their lines. The piece moves loopingly forward, occasionally winding back on itself, but always growing and expanding, broadening like its titular geographic feature until its quiet closing.
The disc ends in memoriam with “For Each a Flower,” which feels more like a Cline solo piece than anything else here. He reflects in sorrow while his three bandmates support him. It's a bit of an odd closing for an album so full of ideas and energy, but it works as a lovely piece of exit music. With such a harmonious finish, it's easy to imagine that this quartet will drift back together before too long.
Wilco grubunun gitaristi Nels Cline, alternatif rock müzik üreten bu grubun bir parçası olmanın yanı sıra, 80′li yıllardan beri caz müzik icra ediyor. Önceden The Nels Cline Singers ve Nels Cline Trio da dahil olmak üzere farklı projeleri bulunan müzisyen, yeni grubu The Nels Cline 4 ile 13 Nisanda ilk albümü Currents, Constellations’ı yayınlayacak. Albümden Imperfect 10 kaydı duyuruldu.
