Relocator

Back in the day – in this case the late ‘70’s and early ‘80’s – there existed a form of music called ‘Jazz/Rock Fusion’ and the real truth of it was that there was precious little Jazz and not enough Rock to satisfy. At its best it was a development of Jazz-Prog with Rock elements and at its worst it was sorely abused by an awful lot of ‘musicians’ who had little idea of how to create a melody and no feel at all for rhythm or musical development – “noodling and self-abuse” as Frank Zappa called it. At its best though it was a powerful and enormously gratifying example of where music could be taken by musicians with talent, the will to experiment and the confidence to occasionally fail.
Relocator are a modern example of the form and have been around for a while but this album has had a number of false starts until Michael Pruchnicki and Stefan Artwin brought in Bartek Strycharski on electric violin, Frank Ting on drums along with Derek Sherinian (keys) and put the whole thing together in a year.

The end result is an absolute triumph with moments that rival the best of people like Chick Corea, Al DiMeola and Mahavishnu John McLaughlin.

Kicking off with the metalised ‘Red Vibes’ you can tell straight off that the band have some serious abilities and they start creating sound-patterns right from the word go with clever use of Strycharski’s violin to soften the power and Artwin’s guitar prowess to keep the tempo swinging. Sherinian’s keyboards are used to great effect on ‘Biosphere’ and as the tracks progress the music builds and develops until the mammoth ‘The Alchemist’ mesmerises and intrigues and ultimately entrances you – the power of the guitars against a simple keyboard melody and huge drum sound leaving you breathless.

It isn’t perfect. There are moments that simply go on too long and occasionally it gets repetitious but I love it for its faults as well as the strengths.

Anyone who knows me well knows that I have been a great fan of Prog and Fusion since, well forever but I am also the first to dismiss it when it is bad.
This album shows that I am not the only one who loves music that is complex and taxes the brain – it may have taken them four years to get it right but they have and mightily so.