Anthony Curtis — Book Of The Key

This is not the kind of music you might have come to expect from the Norwegian Jester label. First of all it’s not a Norwegian artist and secondly the music does not contain any electronics. Anthony Curtis is improvised and organic, music played by acknowledged virtuoso’s at their instruments like Tony Levin (King Crimson, Peter Gabriel and Mike Keneally (ex-Frank Zappa, Beer For Dolphins).

It’s music that gives the impression that it’s made with not much preparation, just have a tape running and take it away. The musicians at hand are experienced in that field and the selection presented here is in the vein of electric Miles Davis and thanks to Jeff Gauthier’s violin also King Crimson’s improvs from the seventies spring to mind. Despite a songtitle like Ḩikmat al-Ishrāq (“The Philosophy of Illumination”, a book by Persian philosopher Suhrawardī) and the use of the Arabic shortneck lute the oud there are little influences from Middle Eastern music. Curtis does use some techniques that seem inspired from it, but more in how to bend strings instead of pressing on the frets to play a melody, something common in Indian music. This particular technique also offers the possibility of microtonality which is also used. Without resorting to Eastern scales though. I think he’s a remarkable guitarplayer with a personal sound. His oud-playing is OK where it pops up here and there, but usually in the background. He’s obviously not classically trained at it though, which might explain the subtlety of its use.

With improvisation there’s always periods where the band are searching eachother and of course there’s little recurring themes. There’s many times where they all lock and the magic starts to happen though (which of course is the advantage of recording and selecting as opposed to the more happy-go-lucky approach of a live-show with an audience). The material provides textures, atmospheres and grooves, rather than songs in the traditional sense. You’d find anything from 2-minute ditties like Gallabalba to lengthy trips like the titlesong that takes 23 minutes. The sound is pretty rough and organic, which is excellent to capture the energy between these musicians. It even makes the normally very precise and clean player Tony Levin even sound a bit more like Les Claypool (Primus).

It may seem a bit of a leap for the label and maybe not all followers may appreciate it as much as I do, but I think it's one of the better releases on Jester. After all: it's not the label that makes the music, so I think as long as the quality is maintained the genre shouldn't really matter.