The Project is formed by two leading jazz and electronica producers: percussionist/producer Robert Bond; and Dustin Michael, Executive Director of Experimental Division. Together they are the base for The Project, writing the compositions and performing many of the tracks on an astounding array of instruments and computer/electronica tools. For The Project CD, they assembled fifteen first rate musicians, producers, composers and artists from around the world to record their 17 substantial compositions in London, New York, and Nashville.
This is deeply evocative music presented in movements, exploring and transcendent in their development with a cyclical nature of returning modes and themes, at once primitive and evolved. Solid ground is firmly established with various drums, percussion and bass, providing a canvas for the soloists to state the mood and landscape with an amalgam of instrumentation. The voice is woven through the compositions using lyricism, spoken word, and vocalization techniques, creating a further intrigue of texture and colour. Throughout there’s a funky heartbeat that evokes a cross between Weather Report and David Byrne. There are too many musical highlights to name them all, suffice to say that each piece has it’s own rewards and the whole is a highly sophisticated and developed unity of jazz, traditional, electronica and fusion. There is a high degree of improvisation involved with this work, yet each piece has been paid enormous attention to detail from it’s conception to production values, seamlessly forming an imperceptible bond of completion.
This is a recording that requires listening to in its entirety (over an hour of sheer luxury), it’s conceptually grand and full of surprises. Each subsequent listen to this mystical composite promises to open yet another dimension.
