LOVE, LOVE

Over a decade after his last solo album, Julian Priester staked out his own territory in the realms of jazz fusion with this esoteric set under his Pepo Mtoto alter ego - a guise he had first adopted in Herbie Hancock's Mwandishi-era band, which had just been dissolved after the completion of Sextant. Although, as in the Mwandishi recordings, Priester and many of his contributors take on Swahili names, I am more reminded of the darker, murkier portions of Miles Davis' Bitches Brew with extensive synthesiser arrangements added, taking the music into deep, spacey realms reminiscent of the work of Priester's former band leader Sun Ra. Priester had clearly learned a lot during the Mwandishi sessions and his prior work in Sun Ra's Arkestra, and uses it all to good effect here.