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Floratone

Floratone

Floratone Blue Note 0946 3 93879 2 2

Floratone is the collective name for fellow Seattle residents, guitarist Bill Frisell and drummer Matt Chamberlain, and two producers, Tucker Martine and Lee Townsend.

The former pair jammed together, with guests Ì bassist Viktor Krauss, cornettist Ron Miles, viola player Eyvind Kang Ì then the resulting tapes were sculpted into releasable shape by Martine and Townsend.

The material ranges from swampy rock-based jams to more jazzy fare, taking in blues, psychedelia, country music etc. en route, but the overall impression is surprisingly lightweight, Frisell mostly content to run through subtle changes of texture and rhythm rather than contributing blistering solos in the pounding, screaming Power Tools vein, say, with which he seized public attention in the 1980s.

Not that said textures are dull or even overly predictable; it's just that the whole album has a somewhat easy-going feel to it that recalls the good-natured noodling guitar music produced by Harvey Mandel et al. in the 1970s.

The overall sound quality, production values etc. are undeniably beguiling, but a little more adventurousness, bite and urgency might have been welcome.