Hugh Hopper Band - Wax Longa скачать в хорошем качестве

Hugh Hopper Band - Wax Longa

Former Soft Machine bassist Hopper has pretty much kept a low profile throughout most of the 80s, so it's good to see him active again. His latest project is a band bearing his name, recorded in the Netherlands with Dutch musicians. Though not really a solo album, Carousel nonetheless finds him back on form. Though bearing Hopper's name, Carousel is very much a group album. Hopper composed only half of the album's ten tracks, and two others are group compositions. And while Hopper's bass does get some solo space, the instrumentation is pretty well balanced, with guitar and sax acting as fundamental sonic components. Stylistically the slant is steeply towards jazz, rock appearing evidently as an afterthought, centered principally in Hopper's fuzz-toned bass. The pieces range from tight latter-day fusion, to unrestrained free-form jazz, to at times an almost big-band sound (on the two tracks with trombonist Robert Jarvis). Hopper even pulls a piece from the archives, namely the old Isotope track "Sliding Dogs. While not an unqualified success, it's good enough to expect exciting things from Hopper and company in the future.