Spartak — Verona
The opening moments of Spartak’s Verona put that into mind as well. A collaboration between Shoeb Ahmad and Evan Dorrian, who use mainly guitars but a number of other goods as well (percussion, computers, tapes, field recordings), it stakes out slightly less intense territory than the aforementioned meeting of the spirits, but it’s still immensely listenable—and it puts in mind an unmistakable sense of extreme concentration and focus being summoned by the players across the whole of its length.
Most of the tracks revolve around wandering guitar lines and textural percussion of some kind, like an extended version of the breakdowns between the movements of something like George Russell’s Electronic Sonata. While there’s little or no formal songwriting—you won’t be humming this stuff; no, not even those of you who think you would be—the performers put enough ebb and flow into the way they assemble things to create a remarkable illusion of same.
A couple of things don’t work. The entirely percussive “Pulled by Rope”, for instance, just sounds like things dropping from the top shelf of a closet. But “Sleepstalker, “Morning Prayer” and “Second-Half Clouded” are truly remarkable tracks, all hinting at how composed / improvised, percussive / melodic and textural / song-based music are halves of wholes and not opposites. Even when more hard-edged electronics appear in the mix, they somehow go with the general flow that’s been established. It’s alien without being alienating.
What Verona doesn’t sport in sheer shouldering passion it makes up for in … well, friendliness. There’s a warmth to the record that is reminiscent of a few good friends inside your house, jamming away, while you yourself are in the adjoining kitchen or maybe out on the back porch.