Robert Walter continues to balance on twin peaks of dance and jazz cultures with
Giving Up the Ghost, whose breezy grooves cool sizzling keyboard and sax lines down to a simmer. The band includes alumni from
Black Eyed Peas, T.J. Kirk, and
Walter's own
Greyboy Allstars, which means that the playing is consistently top-notch. There's enough angularity in the arrangements to bear occasional comparison to
Medeski, Martin & Wood. And there's a cinematic aspect to some of the track sequences, as in the movement from an
Eno echo in the filmy shimmer of "Underbrush," to the holy-rolling handclaps that follow on "Sacred Secret"; listeners with long memories might discern a whiff of
Beaver & Krause in this formula. But these elements serve mainly to paint
Giving Up the Ghost as an audio adornment, whose varied colors seem fashioned more to enhance the ambience than to draw any particular attention to themselves. ~ Robert L. Doerschuk