QUIVER

After such a powerful debut, this album for me was a bit disappointment. I waited for KTU second album some years, and as result received this work - still good , but far from what could be expected.

I believe not everyone know, that KTU is a Finnish-US project, based on collaboration between US KC-related project TU ( Trey Gunn-Pat Mastelotto) and Finnish excellent accordionist Kimmo Pohjonen ( in KTU debut album Finnish part was represented by Kluster duet: accordionist Kimmo Pohjonen + Samuli Kosminen (samples, effects). There, on KTU second work, Samuli Kosminen presented as guest musician only.

So -what is wrong with this album? If their debut was experimental, often free-form ambient soundscapes, gothic jazz and Nordic folk, mixed all in one explosive heavy progressive brew, Quiver is much more framed one. Very structurised, cleaned from all free form experimentation, in fact chamber heavy work for Warr guitar, rhythm (mostly electronic) devices and quite stereotypic accordion sound. Almost all compositions are of the same face, quite formal and even boring after half album was passed. Possibly, the idea was to produce much more accessible sound, but the result is a bit academic and even boring.

If strong point of their debut was this unlimited experimentation and even jazzy improvisation, there on their second album you will hardly find even traces of that spirit. Even exotic accordion in almost all places sounds as just regular electric keyboards.

Still not a bad album, but far from their great debut. Let's wait (with hope) what will be their next step