FEATURING OURSELVES (AS MC HACEK)

Back before we were blessed with the "try before you buy" era of internet showcases like Youtube, Bandcamp, etc., the prog minded listener had to make a certain amount of leap of faith purchases with new music. Some waited for friends to make the buy so you could here the music first, but at some point it had to be your turn to make that leap. Often it resulted in stinkers, but sometimes the catalog was true to the description and you actually get that album that's "...like a blend of Frank Zappa and Allan Holdsworth." That was the case when I purchased MC Hacek - Featuring Ourselves.

Before Alex Machacek moved to the U.S. and became a renowned guitar instructor at Hollywood's GIT, he was already making a name for himself in his home country of Austria. After studying at the Vienna Conservatorium he formed an ensemble called MC Hacek with drummer Harri Ganglberger, bassist Tibor Kövesdi, and percussion/mallet specialist Flip Phillip. The name was chosen, somewhat ironically, to prevent confusion about Mr. Machacek's name. This lone release under the pseudonym starts out exactly as advertised: with a very tightly syncopated, vibe heavy intro that harkens to passages from the Mothers of Invention that prominently featured Ruth Underwood's mallet skills. Underlying the complex manic starts and stops is a very Holdsworth-esque set of jazz-rock fusion chord progressions that form a package that is very much homage, while maintaining a sense of originality. And the homage to these musical giants is in no way disguised with track titles like Zapzarapp and Allandig. Despite being an entirely instrumental album, even Zappa's cornerstone humor gets a nod, exemplified by the cover of Donna Lee by Charlie Parker, which is subtitled Easy Viennese Teenage Version. The song is notoriously challenging in its original form and then taken to the woodshop and carved into an insanely twisted version that the most trained ear can spend a tremendous amount of time trying to find the sourced passages. It is moments like these that punctuate the album's progressive nature. And all the complexity of composition and technical skill of the players never becomes overbearing. There is always a tasteful texture and seamless meshing of ideas, capped with a well balanced recording to form a top-tier production of progressive jazz-rock.

As the years passed, Alex Machacek would develop a more individualized playing style, become an instructor and even have young players attempting to mimic his style. The hints of his influences would continue to be there; enough so that he would eventually have the opportunity to tour with the last manifestation of UK, playing some of the most recognized progressive works in Allan Holdsworth's sphere of influence. Ultimately his compositional style, tone and technique would be wholly his own. And that's a good thing. But Featuring Ourselves will nonetheless shine as a masterpiece of an artist melding styles that influenced him in a very transparent way. This is an album that any fan of either Zappa or Holdsworth will absolutely enjoy, and should be a necessity to any prog collection.