Matt Gold & Dustin Laurenzi - Devotional Fade (We Jazz) [Jazz ]

*** This blog post first appeared in TSMM's May 22nd Newsletter, where you can get all the tips (and more) first ***

Matt Gold is a guitarist, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and producer based in Chicago, who first sprung to my attention on his great collaborative, summer-primed album with Resavoir (tip), that appeared in these pages last year. Dustin Laurenzi is a saxophonist, improviser and composer also from Chicago, and an unknown quantity to me, but he’s how firmly on my radar too. For this fresh and somewhat freaky album, they’ve found a good home on the ever-discerning We Jazz “jazz and creative music“ outlet from Finland, who are also well worth following if you are jazz-inclined.

Matt Gold

Dustin Laurenzi

Where to start with this album? Possibly by throwing your traditional notions of jazz out of the window and opening your mind. Stemming from a month of weekly, recorded improvised sessions and a promise that editing would be kept to a minimum, Gold handled rhythmic duties using a great-sounding vintage drum machine, a host of global percussion and an admirable dedication to bass-induced hypnosis. Laurenzi was kept equally busy on saxophone, clarinet and synths - free-blowing ditched in favour of a repetitive, mantric approach to better further the duo’s sacred minimal mission. It’s a great listen which somehow manages to encompass new-age stargazing, Afro-ritualism, spiritual jazz, skittering galactic transmissions, extra-terrestrial enounters, cosmic wonderment and Ethio-homages. In that order.

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Playlist Companion

Find them in the Slow Oddities Playlist.