JAZZ
BY ANDY COWAN
High Pulp
★★★★
Days In The Desert
ANTI-. CD/DL/LP
Experimental Seattle collective at their most futuristic and concise.
Born from their local DIY scene, High Pulp seriously up the compositional ante on their third album. The Seattle outsiders’ quixotic jazz fusion – Miles Davis, Sun Ra and Weather Report crossed with post-rock and kosmische – is played with contained energy on Bad Infinity and Fatigue, cryptic sound puzzles predicated on tingling electronics, raw percussive flits and Victory Nguyen and Andrew Morrill’s interweaving tenor and alto saxes. A slew of like-minded sonic manipulators enhance their peculiar vision: Prince bassist MonoNeon lending low-end swagger to Never In My Short Sweet Life, Jeff Parker’s slippery, poised fretwork adding texture to Unified Dakotas’ luscious feast of horns, while James Brandon Lewis’s melodic nous and kinetic intensity light up grooving multi-layered standout Dirtmouth. Fluid, cultured, but never wilfully indulgent, Days In The Desert refuses to sit still.