ELSEWHERE

The second album released by guitar-based prog electronic/jazz/fusion artist Yves Potin under the JazzComputer.Org name. The music here is very difficult to categorize. It is a fusion of many eclectic styles, all very nicely engaging the listener on some wild and otherworldly yet relaxing and thoroughly enjoyable journeys through some very exotic aural topographies that might be better described as coming from "ancient futures."

1. "Indian Mood on Thethys" (9:38) opens like a jazz guitarist's solo sound experimentation. I'm reminded of both Pat Metheny's totally solo album from 1979, New Chautauqua, as well as some of Jan Akkerman's late 1970s solo experimentation (Eli). Gorgeous stuff. The first half goes with very little rhythmic structure (the occasional background synth wash chord), but in the second half the guitar and newly-present bass and talking drum and rim shot percussives become support for the soloing of a koto. Cool sounds and cool stuff. I'd like to have seen a little more melodic development to engage me a little more deeply. (8.5/10)

2. "Dawn in the Snow" (11:34) opens as if it came straight from outtakes from Vangelis' Blade Runner soundtrack, this song contains some absolutely magical moments (like the sparsely used operatic voice notes) but lacks from full development in many overly-spacious places. (8.25/10)

3. "Elsewhere" (24.55) other than the opening atonal space synthesizer section (which is very cool but a little too long), this song stands up as one of the prettiest, most deeply engaging and evocative electronica pieces I know of from the Naughties. The section from the beginning of minute seven to ten is absolute prog perfection. The percussives in the next section are really cool, as are the space sounds and unsettling synth worms in the thirteenth minute and the guitar "punches" in the fourteenth and fifteenth minutes. The next section that establishes itself around 17:30, driven by the "lunge jazz" beat, is really cool for the scurrilous flights of the synth "bats." If the opening four minutes were as peaceful and engaging as the final four this would be a perfect prog epic. (9.5/10)

A five star minor masterpiece of ambient electronic jazz fusion (or something like that) and a gorgeous example of the possibilities of 21st Century technological potential.