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Reviews

Percy Howard / Charles Hayward / Fred Frith / Bill Laswell — Meridiem
(Materiali Sonori MASO CD 90098, 1998, CD)

by Jeff Melton, Published 1999-11-01

Meridiem Cover art

Superstar line-ups have a knack for clearly missing their mark; the sums of the player’s parts being much less than their collective musical output. I was very excited to find that Percy Howard’s Meridiem project lives up to the representative names that grace the dark molten lava cover artwork. Fans of Laswell and Frith (and their collaborative work in Material) will be very happy to discover a moving, funky mysterious groove throughout the disc’s nine tracks. Make no mistake though, this is vocalist Howard’s project, with arrangement assistance from his capable and adept friends working on his vision. Together they have created moods that shift from funky, shrouded pieces (as on the disc’s opener, “The 7th”) to collective disturbing improvisations (the disc’s closing piece, “Crucible”). Howard himself is the focal element in the mix: I was unaccustomed to his soulful vocal in this context, but I found myself coming back to his poetic delivery on repeated disc plays. Drummer Charles Hayward offers a strong rhythmic drive unlike any other Laswell related project, both pushing and cutting across the tempo. And this is by far the best work I’ve heard from Fred Frith in many years, with his itching, scratching, radio-sampled solos on tracks such as on “Interference” and “Votive Rhythm” plus sensitive acoustic backing on pieces such as “Frozen.” Having caught the ensemble live in San Francisco earlier this year, their live presentation also lives up to project’s recorded potential. The album receives my highest rating as one of my top ten of the year.

Filed under: New releases, Issue 18, 1998 releases

Related artist(s): Fred Frith, Charles Hayward, Bill Laswell, Percy Howard, Meridiem

 

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