Given the confidence and brazen ambition on
Gist Is, the labyrinthine debut full-length from
Adult Jazz, it's difficult to believe they're less than a year old as a band. University of Leeds music majors Harry Burgess, Tim Slater, and Steven Wells and York University engineering student Tom Howe recorded this set in a Scottish farmhouse. The band employs a wildly recombinant methodology in this sprawling meld of sophisticated indie pop, avant rock, folk, and yes, even a hint of jazz. Though this music does involve some electronic sculpting, it is painstakingly mapped out and played -- not sampled -- on an array of acoustic and electric instruments. There are dozens of musical references here and the listener can often readily pick them out -- the use of
Lou Reed's "Walk on the Wild Side" in the jazzy offbeat soul of "Be a Girl" is an obvious example. But just as often, what initially sounds familiar is made wonderfully alien. The numerous musical inspirations are referents designed to draw the listener's attention toward this band's vast compositional palette. Opener "Hum" inauspiciously commences with a minimal keyboard drone and Burgess singing in a manner informed by plainchant for three full minutes. When the melody does open, an arresting distorted keyboard and bassline are guided by a swinging drum kit, horns, and toy piano to establish a lithe yet fleeting groove. "Am Gone" is introduced by near scatting vocals, but ticking cymbals, punchy keyboards, and bright guitar voicings create several simultaneous fragmentary melodies, and integrate the singer before a wind segment implies harmonic counterpoint. "Springful"'s fingerpopping meld of jazz and folktronica evolves toward pastoral psych pop with gospel implied in lyric and melody, even as backmasked instruments, wonky guitars, and a frenetic rolling bass drum refract its center. The nearly ten-minute "Spook" uses a droning piano and vanguard vocal techniques but mercurially extrapolates them to express myriad musical identities from modern classical vocal music (think
Nico Muhly) to the 21st century equivalent of
XTC-esque pop. The spacious production makes Burgess' gorgeous voice -- which moves from tenor to falsetto seamlessly -- a focal point, but given the sparse mix, it often acts as another instrument rather than a "narrative" centerpiece. Each track here twists, turns, and folds in and out of itself; what initially seems to be passionate, kinetic improvisation emerges as well conceived and executed song forms. And none of it is cloying; most of this album contains an emotional depth that anchors the sometimes dissonant and contrasting structural parts.
Gist Is may not seem accessible on first listen, but any degree of patience will be rewarded abundantly. It's uncompromising yet masterful, an auspicious and perhaps even magical first offering. ~ Thom Jurek