Samadha Trio - Immediate Action #5
(Hefty)
It's been said that if you scratch off the top coat of any post-rock band, you
will find the soul of Miles Davis underneath. Atlanta's Samadha Trio has taken
that old car and refurbished it to like new, proto-fusion condition. The Trio
has much more in common with those seminal late 60s jazz fusion artists that
orbited around Davis than it does with any of the current fakejazz
groups of today.
The Samadha Trio does try to reinvigorate the sound by incorporating more
modern elements--futuristic synthesizer squiqqles, computer-hiccup beats, and
droning moodscapes--into it. One has to think though, that since Bitches Brew
and the like were so far ahead of their time, whether these modern elements the
Samadha Trio tries to use to spice up the mix are really so much a modernization
as they are just a slight tweaking of the original sound.
Whether this is a small step forward or a small step back does not distract
from the impact of the Trio's music, though, as too many of today's post-rock
bands could use a beginners' course on the foundations of fusion--incorporating
jazz and rock elements--something Samadha breezed up on long ago.
The Trio is made up of keyboard, upright bass, and drums. This short EP, part
of Hefty Records' Immediate Action series and the debut recording for the band,
is more so a precursor of great things to come than a grand recording itself,
showing small glimpses of the many sides of the band. The first song, "Hour
38" opens with a droning keyboard part which turns into a more typical
post-rock sound (though coming from more jazz-like instruments), emphasizing
groove and atmosphere. "Satoric," on the other hand, is made only from piano
and the shake of a tamborine. The last song, "Toki," takes a standard symbiotic
jazz groove but uses improvisational interludes that drone and linger instead
of skronk and moan, creating something recognizable as fusion but a sound
that the band can call their own.
Ultimately, the knock on the Samadha Trio is also their strength. One could
say that with all the great Davis, Mahavishnu, etc. records, there's little
reason to spend time on new interpretations. However, by going back to the
roots of the sound, the band has managed to avoid the trappings of most of the
late fusion and current post-rock artists, and the new sound they have come
up with is interesting and invigorating. Return to forever romantic warrior.
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