Pino Palladino plays various types of basses with electronics, and co-leads a band with Blake Mills, who plays instruments ranging from electric guitars, exotic woodwinds, reeds, percussion and things plugged in. They mix and match small group ensembles which include Cris Dave/dr, Larry Goldings/key, Rob Moose/vi, Sam Gendel/polysax, Ted Poor/prepared and Sam Gendel/polyb. If you haven’t guessed by now, many of the songs have an experimental and electronic sound to them.
There are mixes of hip hop-synthetic pulses and electronic sax sections on “Soundwalk” while a meld of Africa and Brian Eno on the percussive “Ekute” and synth sounds with sand paper on “Off The Guff”. East African lilt and disco R&B groove on “Djurkel” and the team clip clops to space sounds on ”Man From Milose”. Most pretty is the fragile dreamscape of the title pieces, while West African beats and synthetic saxes make up “Chris Dave”. The music is intriguing in its own right, but it sounds more like a soundtrack for a documentary than a living jazz conversation.