A decade ago, NPR saddled New York guitarist Nir Felder with the cursed "next big guitarist" tag. It took four years for him to issue Golden Age, his debut for Sony's Okeh imprint. The album deserved it accolades. Critics described him as a technically gifted instrumentalist. II follows six more years of woodshedding with artists ranging from Erykah Badu and Terri Lyne Carrington to Jack DeJohnette and Brad Mehldau, from Meshell Ndegeocello and Chaka Khan to the Dave Matthews Band. He also honed his writing and live work with a live trio comprised of upright bassist Matt Penman and drummer Jimmy Macbride. For II, Felder and trio recorded these tracks live in studio; he added loads of overdubs including electric and acoustic guitars, banjo, mandolin, Rhodes piano, theremin, synth, and samplers (all used tastefully). The multi-tracks weren't added as pre-composed orchestration; each began its recorded life as an improvisation that Felder used to get to the root mystery of a particular tune.
Pastoral opener "The Longest Star" sounds -- at least initially -- like it might be an outtake from Bill Frisell's Nashville due to the preponderance of strummed banjo as primary rhythmic accompaniment, while Felder's guitar playing offers a dreamy, moody, Americana-tinged melody. The full trio gets into the act on "Interregnum," a knotty fusion jam with a gloriously assonant chorus. The trio's syncopation and rhythmic invention push it onto the ledge, but Felder reins it in with gorgeous, spacy synth and theremin adding textural depth and dimension. In the tune's second half, propelled by Penman, the guitarist moves across swing and post-bop without losing the fusion thread. "Fire in August" unfolds along a repetitive rock riff, where stacked, dirty-sounding guitars knot and groove above organic, future funk drums and bass. On "Coronation," the guitarist's slightly over-amped guitar floats through the body of the mix and he plays a series of elliptical and soulful lines framed by chordal vamps. Penman's pizzicato playing adds emotional heft while Macbride's classy brush work dances across the kit in a jazz waltz. "Big Heat" is a set highlight. Its bluesy entry is underscored by sampled brass, a metaphor for New York's jazz improv scene. It sparkles with immediacy, propulsive single-line runs, stretched Les Paul-esque chord voicings, and a spy-flick ambience appended by an odd metered rhythmic engagement. A vocal sample from Dakota Sioux actor and musician Floyd Red Crow Westerman looks at that and all futures as places where "nothing stays the same." "Big Swim," with its synth programs and junglist snares initiate what initially seems an abstract exercise in jazz-electro fusion but quickly transforms into an investigative journey between it, progressive jazz, and ferocious prog rock. Felder's II certainly confirms Golden Age was no fluke, but more than that, it signals the mature arrival of a musician whose acknowledgment of genre boundaries lies in masterfully blurring them to create something truly other.