Recently Heard: Floating Point

[ellyssian]

John McLaughlin: Floating Point

I was really trying to resist reviewing this, on account of having his 2006 release in the bedside stack waiting for a review. To be fair, its only been there a week or so, but I've had it since 2006...

There are definitely some similarities between the two recordings - there's overlapping personnel, and there's a similar mix of his Eastern interests (see his Shakti or the Mahavishnu stuff) with a more traditional jazz.

Perhaps the most surprising thing is this doesn't really stand out as a guitarists record. The last track - Five Peace Band - comes the closest to a guitar driven tune, and even then, as I started typing this out, Hadrien Feraud breaks out into a bass solo section. Not a guitar-driven record at all, just some really good jazz.

On all the tracks, John plays a guitar synth, and that helps keep the guitar sound down - especially since on half the tracks he plays only guitar synth; the other half he plays both. Still, the lead instruments are likely to be the soprano sax, bamboo flute, or semi-wordless vocals.

While I've heard some lamenting amongst certain circles of guitarists about the long period John set down his electric guitar and played only Marielle (apologies, I can no longer link directly to it; the link goes to the Wechter custom gallery, where photos of Marielle can be found) - and I'm not one of them; not only do I love his acoustic stuff (especially his Concerto for Guitar & Orchestra "The Mediterranean"), but I've played Marielle, and it's flat-out the single best guitar in the known universe and 9 out of 10 unknown universes. Still, I think those anti-acoustic folks should be happy that he's playing the electric once again. Even if he's letting other brilliant and talented musicians spend time in the spotlight.