HIROMI'S SONICBLOOM: TIME CONTROL

Time Control the first studio album by Japanese musician Hiromi Uehara's group, Hiromi's Sonicbloom, and her 4th studio album overall. I was a bit sceptical because of the artwork ( could be some J-pop) , but there is no reason to worry. It is a concept album centered about the idea of time, but because it is an instrumental album, without knowing the title of the compositions we would hardly notice this. We have here 9 tracks in roughly 61 minutes. Hiromi mainly uses her piano, synths are sparingly, but effectively used. Hiromi is accompanied in this project by David Fiuczynski on guitar, Tony Grey on bass guitar and Martin Valihora on drums. The guitar player is the strongest addition, but the other two musicians are great as well. The interplay between the musicians is absolutely outstanding, so the album not only about Hiromi's brilliant piano and keyboard playing. The music on this album is jazz-fusion, very technical and complex, but also quite melodic, if you have the sligthest interest for jazz music there is a lot to like here. Personally, I cannot say a bad word of Hiromi's any 9 compositions featured on Time Control. My favourite tracks are the opening Time Differences with magnificient interplay between Hiromi and David, then Deep into the Night featuring Hiromi's most beautiful piano work on this album, and Time Flies, an overwhelming piece of sound painting with a wonderful flow. In my opinion this album is an essental example of modern jazz fusion.