REVIEW: Spring Heel Jack, Treader (Thirsty Ear)
- Andrew Duncan
Drum and bass, or jungle, whichever you prefer, has come a long way, transcending into an art form that goes beyond the powerful drum samples that jackhammer beats per minute faster than the brain can register. Times have changed and musicians are using drum and bass as a tool to create intelligent music. Talvin Singh turned drum and bass into an international experience while LTJ Bukem made jungle intergalactic. However, it is Spring Heel Jack, comprised of John Coxon and Ashley Wales, that use orchestration as a blueprint to transform the dance music into an intellectual piece of modern art.
Treader has a slow beginning, but there is plenty of time for the album to unfold with nearly 75 minutes of play time. "Is" begins with screeching strings that quickly bounce into a sultry accompaniment that would sound perfect in a James Bond film. "Winter" has the same effect, incorporating blasts of burlesque horn samples that are dragged out too long.
Coxon and Wales turn up the knobs with "Blackwater." The song makes excellent use of computer sound effects embedded in a canopy of beats that ping-pong back and forth. The music becomes more intense as the CD progresses. "Eyepa," the high point of the album, creates science-fiction textures with more paranoid loops that leak hints of industrialism. "More Stuff No One Saw" breaks free from the true definitions of drum and bass and looks at the music in the same fashion as Miles Davis did to jazz -- limitless.
The band really shines best when they break free of traditional drum and bass and explore new terrain like that of Phillip Glass or John Zorn. "Toledo" and "1st Piece for La Monte Young" begins as ambient texture that eventually fall into a sequence of mathematical beats and humming basslines.
Coxon and Wales end Treader with two bonus songs from The Sound of Music EP, which covers Rodgers & Hammerstein's "My Favorite Things" and "Climb Every Mountain." The two are such purists when it comes to the remixes that most fans of Rodgers & Hammerstein's work will truly appreciate.
Spring Heel Jack create respectable music that is intelligent and diverse. Not every song is easily accepted, but the music proves that drum and bass is still ahead of its time.
