For those unaware, Eldritch Priest is a composer and improviser. His compositions, which have been performed in North America and Europe, are characterized by their ob/excessive approach to melody (not in a systematic sense, but in the sense that they don’t stop and tend towards the absurd).

In addition to the aforementioned groups, past collaborators have included Quatuor Bozzini, Motion Ensemble, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Continuum, Arditti Quartet and Thin Edge New Music Collective.

Releasing simultaneously, Too, So Like Nothing collects three solo works, all of which are performed by Roger Admiral, a respected ling-time advocate of contemporary music within Canada. The album’s sole performer, Admiral operates within solo and chamber music performing repertoire spanning the 17th through the 21st century.

The other album of the pair being reviewed here today is No One Asked Us Yet, which documents further movement along this trajectory. This one comes from Priest’s trio Raymond Roussel, and offers up something altogether different. Named (aptly so) after the early 20th-century proto-surrealist write, the group plays what Priest describes as a chimerical species of jazz.

Priest leads the combo on guitar, and he is joined by fellow polymath Brady Cranfeld (drums and electronics) plus James Meger on bass.

Moving between improvisations, Priest-penned originals, and two idiosyncratic treatments of well-known tunes, their sound draws from post-fusion contemporary jazz such as Terje Rypdal, Bill Frisell, or even Pat Metheny on one hand, and the other, the electronics-heavy intensity of acts like Supersilent, Box, Scorch Trio, or Huntsville. These latter tendencies are even more potent in Cranfield and Priest’s duo work as Alfred Jarry.

1. somnambulator [02:57]
2. black (is the colour of my true love’s hair) [10:25]
3. no one asked us yet [02:31]
4. spur [06:38]
5. multi-watt [03:34]
6. five [05:07]
7. derelict lounge [03:59]
8. luster [04:27]
9. swerve [07:32]
10. the other side of the other side [06:16]

Recorded and mixed by John Raham at Afterlife Studios and mastered by Murat Colak, this industrially opulent new recording opens on the sonically ambient somnambulator and the spatial opus black (is the colour of my true love’s hair) and then we are brought forth the intricately sculpted no one asked us yet, the affecting spur and the robustly frenetic multi-watt.

Along next is the rhythmically cognate, flourishing affair of five and the gently jagged, stoically-hued derelict lounge and they are in turn followed by the smooth gossamer of luster, the set rounding out on the consciously coltish swerve, coming to a close on the resoundingly emotive the other side of the other side.

Musicians:
Eldritch Priest: Guitar
James Meger: Bass
Brady Cranfield: Drums + Electronics

Official Purchase Link

www.strangemonk.com

www.raymondroussel.net

www.rogeradmiral.com