Short Reviews [Sonar - 2018 - "Live at Moods"]

Sonar were formed in 2010 and comprise Stephan Thelen (tritone guitar), Bernhard Wagner (tritone guitar), Christian Kuntner (tritone bass) and Manuel Pasquinelli (drums). Since then they have created quite a reputation for themselves with their jagged eclectic RIO jazz approach to progressive rock, and for their fourth full-length studio album, ‘Vortex’, they invited producer (and guitarist, film-composer) and David Torn to work with them. During the recording, the chemistry between Sonar and David Torn worked so well that Torn was invited to play on every track. So, when the band played a concert at Moods Jazz Club in Zurich, Switzerland, on May 24th last year, they took the opportunity to invite David to join them and this is the result. There are three pieces from Vortex (“Waves and Particles”, “Red Shift” and “Lookface!”), a piece from ‘Static Motion’, “Twofold Covering”, and an improvised David Torn solo piece called “For Lost Sailors” together with “Tromso”, a piece that Sonar played without David Torn. This last is one of the very first songs they rehearsed together and opens their debut album ‘A Flaw of Nature’. This is music which is on the edge, guitarists combining together to create something ethereal, threatening, complex, yet also with space between the layers. This is King Crimson being taken to a different musical world, where musicians are allowed by the audience to relax into their art, only making a sound when a track has ended. Complex, this is music which hurts when played loudly, as the brain attempts to digest what is happening in front of its ears and generally fails. There is nothing relaxing or calm about this music, it is designed to cause an emotional flight or fight response, and it is incredibly hard to listen to in many ways. That the listener needs to make the effort as there is a great deal to be gained from it is never in doubt. This is music pushing boundaries, truly progressing.