Detailed Reviews [Spectrum Orchestrum - 2018 - "It's About Time"]

Prolusion. French band Spectrum Orchestrum have a history that dates back to 2007, and have a handful or so of album releases to their name as of 2024. The album "It's About Time" dates back to 2018, and was released by a handful of niche labels, as well as being made available digitally through a Creative Commons licence.

Analysis. There will always be a little bit of an argument to be had, I guess, for whether music of an improvised nature can truly be described inside the progressive rock category or not. For me it all depends on whether music is conventional, as regarded from a mainstream point of view, and in that regard improvisations will also fit the bill. In this case with a band that know and love their improvised jazzrock. While the line-up isn't stated on this album, it is easy to tell that the saxophone is involved here, and it is a prominent instrument in the landscapes explored on this production. An album with three creations, clocking in at 1 minute, 33 minutes and 10 minutes respectively. Hence we get a little bit of variation in terms of the type of creations we are presented with. Otherwise we have keyboards and guitars sharing the limelight with the aforementioned saxophone, and a rhythm section that gets to have their place in the limelight too. The intense and chaotic opening minute long song isn't one that intrigued me all that much. It is interesting to kick off an album with a real blast, but apart from an experience of high intensity this didn't really add anything substantial to my experience as a listener. The following half hour epic was a much more rewarding experience for me, with a striking and alluring development from the flowing textures with subtle noise and cosmic tinges that opens this excursion and through a more minimalistic searching phase and then with a subsequent more dramatic and chopped manner of execution in the final part. In a different but equally compelling manner the concluding creation 'Not the End' also managed to charm me with the more careful drones, fluctuations and noise effects with occasional cosmic undercurrents and careful surges.

Conclusion. While there are numerous intriguing moods and atmospheres to enjoy on this production, this is also an album that probably relies on the listener being familiar with and generally having a bit of an affection for improvised landscapes to begin with. But for those who recognize themselves in such a description, and enjoy jazzrock with a little bit of an occasional cosmic feel, then this is an album that should be quite the interesting experience.

Progmessor: October 2024
The Rating Room