“There is some pretty good unedited music on Live at the Mudlark Public Theater! And I just wish that someday Jim Combs will bring it in studio...”
1 Ghosts of Arabi 7:37 2 Best Bank Second Line 4:10 3 Blues Right Quick 7:45 4 Band Introductions 0:38 5 Android Cat Watches Birds 3:52 6 Groove Static 6:52 SubSequent Records | SR007-02 (CD/DDL 30:54) (V.F.) (Ambient tribal, Neo Folk, Berlin School)
Recorded during a concert at Mudlark Public Theater in New Orleans on December 2016, this last opus of Sensitive Chaos, simply entitled LIVE AT THE MUDLARK PUBLIC THEATER, is a mini album of 30 minutes where the band of Jim Combs interprets 6 unedited titles while waiting to a consecration for the album March of the Timeshifters being chosen the best album of EM by Zone Music Reporter.
Ghosts of Arabi presents to us the dark side of Sensitive Chaos with Josie Quick's very tearful violin which tears a dark soundscape plunged into vapors of ether. Thus, it's with a very introspective ambient music, where the curt movements of the violin strings are dancing on its tranquility proposed previously and now resumed by the charms of the synth, that Sensitive Chaos celebrates March of the Timeshifters. The Arabian flavors of Ghosts of Arabi are pouring in the introduction knotted of pulsations which shake the very Middle East tribal approach of Best Bank Second Line. The rhythm is hectic with a skillful mixture between American folk and the Arabian ballads tinted by a lascivious Baladi dance where the hips espouse the slow and idle movement of the violin. Josie Quick's violin remains just as much dominant in Blues Right Quick which does not really need a description. That’s Blues, rather lunar and very intimate, that we listen to around a fire which illuminates a night in the desert. Carillons and light tones, Android Cat Watches Birds is a very good ballad of Sensitive Chaos' repertoire. We find here sound flavors of March of the Timeshifters and of the very seductive Amerisynthecana; one of the very beautiful surprises of 2013. The best is for the end with Groove Static which lays down a structure of a very lively minimalist rhythm near to our ears. Hopping and lively, the meshing between percussions and its tsitt-tsitt, as well as the heavy hummings of the pulsations, condemn our feet to follow the drumming of our fingers in very vaporous atmospheres a la Klaus Schulze in his years of Picture Music. It's of good old Berlin School where we would have never thought of finding on an album of Sensitive Chaos.
With a musical register which transcends the traditional American electronic folk style, LIVE AT THE MUDLARK PUBLIC THEATER, is a beautiful intrusion in the parallel universe of Sensitive Chaos. The music is very good! She overflies a beautiful pallet of styles, which always made the strength of this rather eclectic group, with an audacious emphasis in the tribal kind of the Middle East and the paths gazified of ether of the old model of Berlin School. On the other hand, this music also suffers from a small lack of relief because the group became an evening trio. I hardly dare to imagine all the depth which would get free of it if Jim Combs brought it in studio with his 6 musicians who make of the Sensitive Chaos universe something rather unique. But the music of LIVE AT THE MUDLARK PUBLIC THEATER will stay a collector's item for the fans of the group who were not able to have the opportunity to go this very convivial concert of Sensitive Chaos.
Sylvain Lupari (February 23rd, 2017) ***½**
Available at Sensitive Chaos
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