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MJBrady
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Published on: 22 May 2004
Matt Williams is steadily bringing some great new fusion music to the more extreme side of the genre through his Liquid Note label, he has a nice stable of talented musicians to work with, and each cd I have had the pleasure of hearing is yet another ear popping adventure in the heavy instrumental world of technical and dazzling musicianship. His label provdes an outlet for artists that not only are world class musicians, but artistst that have the freedom to write highly challenging progressive instrumental music. Funny, this description describes my personal preferences in music, and he has a label doing just that, Finally! I know there are others out there that have the same tastes in music, so this is a heads up, go to the Liquid Note site (link provided in artists page here), and check out everything going on there, you won't be disappointed.
J.A.M. is an interesting little slice of fusion, interesting in that it is a compilation of 9 songs, divided into three individual groups, each group provides 3 songs to the cd, and these groups are led by different guitarists, so it's almost a sampler cd of these musicians so to speak. Yet given the fact that the guitarists are all writing intensely motivated music, the cd flows together well. First you have Milan Polak, who has been making a name for himself for his solo efforts as a shred style musician, he plays some very intricate songs on this cd, showing excellent flair for technical arrangements that fully compliment his amazing playing. Alessandro Benvenuti, who's cd Sonic Design is reviewed here at Proggnosis, plays in the style of Greg Howe ultra fluid playing that accompanies complex arrangements, a perfect marriage of power and beauty go hand in hand on his three contributions with J.A.M. Joel Rivard is the one guitarist here that I am familiar with, but he is in good company here, from what I can tell you, he has a very nimble style that reminds me a LOT of the great Shawn Lane, and plays with the same tasteful expression and freedom the Shawn did.
So there you have a brief summary of what J.A.M. offers, so all of you instrumental/progressive/heavy/technical music fans should get over to Matt's website, and get hold of some of these new creations, and give him more motivation to keep the music coming.
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