Rex Shepherd plays guitar and prepared guitar as he leads a quartet of David Pate/ss-ts-bcl, Gill Folwell/b-aharp and Jose Cochez/dr through twelve intuitive originals. The concise tunes are on the conversant side, with moods predominate over melody.
Pate’s bass clarinet goes the range of subtones on the gurgling “Shrag” to richly dark with suitar strums on “Surculus” and free with Cochez during “Vimen.” Folwell’s bass gets spacious with the leader on ‘Withie” and is eerie with Pate’s soprano on “Seten.” Cochez keeps the pace relaxed on a languid “Telgor” and the team is rich in communication for “Spray.” Lot of bark to this tree.