Zweiton - "Form" Review

Artist/ Band: Zweiton
Title: Form
Label: Unsung Records
Year of Release: 2011
Offical Artist/ Band Link

The Review:

This is a nice music project led by a fairly new touch guitarist named Alexander Dowerk, who played as guest on the recent Adrian Benavides “Same Time Next Life” I reviewed here in ProgNaut this week. Adrian and omnipresent Markus Reuter produce this and help out on Dowerk’s recording as well. Dowerk handles touch guitar ,electronics, and programming and is typically more jazz fusion and delicate with visits into spacey funk and progressive rock, occasionally getting into the eastern realms. Not that he doesn’t have some hard hitting stuff as even the first track ‘Sand’ has some nice punch after the first minute. The first couple of songs sound like the French space (even zeuhl) jazz school combining a Steve Hillage, Jean Pascal Boffo with a Holdsworth/UK/Bruford style. Any fans of these will be right at home and smiling. Albeit the music on Zweiton is accessible , clean, tight and absolutely high end music, you do get plenty of complex interchange and attention keeping music. . You hear some of Fripp’s arpeggio pattern influence also, which is an added flavor. Check out track 2 (‘Triebwerk’) for a taste.

By the time you get to the 3rd song ‘9 Days of Tripping’, which is an extended cut at 10:26, you have a slow building mid period (Discipline, The Beat, Three of a Perfect Pair) Crimson styled composition with that angular funk jazz rock and some ambient laced structure. This breaks into a hot jazz fusion bridge just after 4 minutes, then back to the more funk jazz ambient coolness. The backing musicians are Alexis Paulus on drums (does a great job), and guests, Udo Dzierzanowski - acoustic guitar on track 6, Roland Vanecek - tuba on track 6, and Andrea Sanz Vela - viola on tracks 1 and 4. The music was written by Alexander Dowerk and Alexis Paulus 2005-2009, and then re-composed and re-arranged by Dowerk 2010. I have no idea how it sounded initially, but the new result is tasty and very well worth the time to listen. If you like what is descried so far, track 4 (‘Eis’) is majestic and exotic with a subtle dance to it. I can even hear a Richard Pinhas influence happening as it gets more up tempo and assertive (once again referring to that French force). The same applies to the next song ‘Fehlfunktion’ with it’s very energetic and bold Crimson/David Torn serving. This one is top dog for the more heady progressive rock instrumentals. And lastly, another extended cut of 9 1/2 minutes (‘Licht’) that combines all the styles in one song, beginning with a nice eastern guitar dominated intro, then goes to heavy bass ( Levin style) infused semi funky space jazz rock.

Everyone gets in on this with the addition of tuba and acoustic guitar. Exceptional drumming, a merry-go-round of sound and rhythm makes a fully enjoyable composition. This has great textures happening and a great stop and re-group in the middle, to create a new intertwine of polyrhythms very much in the vein of Richard Pinhas again. Beautifully done!! The song fades out with ambience but remains in your mind for hours. I’ll be adding this to my collection without a doubt. Recommended !

Reviewed by Lee Henderson on September 12th, 2012

Tracks:

01. Sand (2:19)

02. Triebwerk (6:43)

03. 9 Days of Tripping (10:26)

04. Eis (6:52)

05. Fehlfunktion (6:54)

06. Licht (9:49)