Amazing release: Creating an after-the-fact transition between early electric jazz and contemporary electronic washes, Dru is made up of David Maranha (organ), Manuel Mota (electric guitar) and Riccardo Dillon Wanke (electric piano). Initial impressions are something like a slowed-down, percussionless (and trumptetless!) version of Bitches Brew. The keyboards create slow-changing washes of texture while Mota's clean-and-warm-sounding guitar interjects chords and thoughtful melodic fragments. Each sound created has the impression of being examined from every angle before the next element is introduced. When the guitar drops out, the extended organ drones and electric piano colourations have something in common with Fennesz's droning but melodic compositions. The Mota's guitar, adding the more tightly-focussed sense of a pick or finger impacting on a string to the more diffuse sounds created by the other two musicians, pulls the ear towards hearing this music as a real-time group improvisation rather than electronic boffinery. Despite one or two moments that stray close to jazz-cliché territory, this subtle, multi-layered music deserves attention. -- nick illot
:: Dru/l`aiguille du dru - headlightsrecordings/numbered edition of 200.