RAGE

This is my favourite Philharmonie album. It is certainly more energetic and a little more aggressive than the other discs. It has excellent clear production with wonderful seperation of those intricate interlocking 'Discipline-era King Crimson meets Steve Reich minimalism' ostinati. The viruosity of group interplay and intelligence of composition is very high and extremely impressive. Often, as in much of Steve Reich's music, there is a 12/8 polyrhythmic approach to rhythmic construction which lends the listener a wonderful ambiguity of perspective as to how the music is percived rhythmically. There is evidence of great technical virtuosity as regards soloing, with glimpses of a free-er sort of expression peeping out from the essentially pattern based systems-music-driven surface, but any sense of 'blowing' or player indulgence is well and truly reigned in in service to the tightness of the group interplay required to execute the compositions. While there is a solid ensemble 'sound' across the disc characterised by clean interlocking electric guitar and bass lines and intricate kit, scattered about the album there are also wonderful sprinkles of texture from percussion and processed sustained guitar textures (foreground and background) to add welcome contrast to the generally percussive approach. Whereas I think on other Philharmonie albums there are ocassional less interesting spots, on 'Rage' every track excels in its own way.