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Reviews

Jaye Foucher — Contagious Grooves
(Fuism 67760, 2000, CD)

by Jon Davis, Published 2000-10-01

Contagious Grooves Cover art

Jaye Foucher’s second album starts out with a 9/8 synthesizer riff, but don’t be fooled. This is a guitarist’s show. After a few bars, Foucher’s fluid lead comes in with a crunchy version of the same riff. This first track. “What Comes Around,” switches freely among a number of time signatures, and Foucher’s band (John Vittori on bass and Matt Scurfield on drums) give her solid backing through the changes. Her playing falls into a fairly flashy modern style, mostly rock with a little jazz and blues for flavor, and no shortage of technique. She’s not as wild as Steve Vai or Scott Henderson, I suppose, but she could hold her own in any battle of the frets. The all-instrumental tunes are mostly riff-based, and Foucher augments her electric with some acoustic guitar and keyboards. Vittori and Scurfield are both fully rounded sidemen, from the occasional slap bass (as on “Transition”) to the pummeling double-bass-drum assault (“Angst”). The tunes are well-written, if not exactly groundbreaking, and feature some killer unison sections and tricky time signatures. I especially like the 7/8 sections of “Surreality” and the warped funky strut of “Hippo Groove.” For listeners looking for a hot new guitarist in a power trio, Jaye Foucher is definitely worth checking out.

Filed under: New releases, Issue 20, 2000 releases

Related artist(s): Jaye Foucher

 

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