Album Information:
Led by drummer Asaf Sirkis, with Steve Lodder on church
organ and Mike Outram on electric guitar, this is a rock-jazz fusion album that
pushes the boundaries of genre with theatrical intent. The music was originally
commissioned by the department of the arts of the Tel Aviv City Council,
allowing Sirkis to tour his work around Israel from 1997 to 1998. After moving
to London in the late nineties he joined Gilad Atzmon’s Orient House Express,
which eventually led to the formation of his own ensemble; The Inner Noise.
This trio’s self-titled album is credited as having created their own
sub-genre; gothic jazz – an apt name considering the sacred organ sounds and
setting.
Recorded at St. Michael’s church in Highgate, North London,
there is a dark, looming feel to the album. Track 4 for example, Floating,
opens with a sustained wall of organ, a sluggish beat that continuously diverts
towards fills and cymbal crashes, and the minor key noodling of Outram. It
creates a pensive atmosphere, a lingering sense of anticipation as though this
is the build-up, the wait. And in a sense it is. The whole series of tracks
give the impression of an operatic, episodic whole. The album is the message,
not one individual tune. Track 5, Inner Noise, is a far grander beast, a darker,
more harmonically varied piece. Lodder’s church organ growls throughout and
Outram’s angular melody places a unifying lid on proceedings.
White Elephant, the finale, continues the droned,
textural organ effects and swirling guitar soloing, but it builds to an almost
funk rhythm by Sirkis, and an all out attack drum solo. This is an album for
those who love their jazz ethereal, contemplative and rocking.
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