Brian Ellis - Free Way

Brian Ellis
"Free Way"
Benbecula Records, 2007
(BEN532)
CD Album
Minerals Series - Limited

Release date: 11 June 2007

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Track Listing

(Track samples are edits)

01 A Wiggles Worth
02 Deep and Out
03 Smeared Smiled
04 The New Free Way
05 Escondido
06 Sewer Bugler
07 Abmilak

Brian Ellis releases his first album proper for Benbecula in anticipation of his full scale release "The Silver Creature". "Free Way" explores the more experimental facet of Brian's style with illustrious jazz workouts that harp back to the days of such freedom of expression during the early 70s, although still maintaining a very modern edge through the use of contemporary composition and instruments.

Excellent artwork and packaging on this one off Minerals Release make this a must have.

Video

Sewer Bugler

Reviews

"A formidable release, music can't get any cooler than this."

Angryape

"Free Way is a thorough exploration of the thin, glitchy line that exists between free jazz and ambient electronica - just like it sounds, eh? Even though the Californian's debut in Benbecula's storied Minerals Series is supposed to showcase his more experimental side, this work of fluid art finds the uncharted territory Kieran Hebden (Four Tet) and Steve Reid were going for but, as close as they were, didn't quite reach."

Nerve Magazine

"Free Way by Californian Brian Ellis is anything but meditative soundscaping. Ellis's own Benbecula debut (soon to be followed in August by The Silver Creature) inhabits an explorative jazz-electronic zone situated halfway between Flanger and On the Corner- era Miles Davis. With its free flow of drums, tenor sax, guitar, bass, electronics, and echoplexed trumpet wah-wah, the psychedelic space-jazz of “Deep and Out” sounds like an outtake from a lost 1972 Miles session. If the material is entirely constructed by Ellis alone (often impossible to tell these days), he effects a remarkably convincing simulation of a full band's interplay on extended workouts like “Smeared Smiled” and the thirteen-minute “The New Free Way.” Transporting the album momentarily to India , tablas generate agitated, up-tempo rhythms in “ Escondido ” before sax and drums barrel in and assume center stage. A nice change of pace, “Abmilak” closes the album placidly with a kalimba-laden setting. Ultimately, Ellis's release may deploy a markedly different production methodology than that of On the Corner, Agharta, et al., but, sonically, Free Way doesn't stray radically from the template established by those releases."

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