So this festive season, there's much musical thought of choirs and classical settings but don't imagine that Raz Olsher's classical background means 'Rubato' is going to be all "sugar and spice and all things nice".
In fact, it's so much better than that as the opening track,'Prelude With Attitude', is all about the attitude. And as it's a 'concept' album, the theme continues with 'Aquarium' [if there's one Youtube music video to watch this year, this is it - see below] as Dilla meets Harry Potter on the way to the dripping underworld.
'Daydream' is even more avant-garde but we never get quite as far as 2008's 'ReComposed' by Carl Craig and Moritz Von Oswald who delved into Deutche Grammophon's archives of Ravel and Mussorgsky. But that could be avenue to suggest as I suspect Marina Lieberman-Haywood (piano) is a far bigger name in her concert field than I am aware of.
'In Between' does sound like a start of an "emergence" from this underworld big choral theme's that could be Radiohead or Pink Floyd cover version (well, it is a concept album) when 'Field Day' goes deeply synth dub and the album ends on a strange d'n'b-maninoff pool match ('Minnesota Fats' is the strangest track I've heard all year, even beating 'Warm Fireplace' on WUTMK)
Click To Play (up/down arrows to skip tracks)
I suspect Raz didn't want to go Raz Olsher Trio as that would have made it sound too jazzy as his improvisations revolve around Rachmaninoff, Debussy, Chopin et al but if you like you're classical music al la Vince Guaraldi vs. Dick Hyman vs. Black Sabbath this time of year, this is the album for you: and you'll be delighted.
Artist: Raz Olsher
Title: Rubato
Release date: 15th December, 2023
Label: Fossil Sounds
Cat. No: RUB111CD
Format: Digital / Spotify / Soundcloud / Deezer / Youtube
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