Prezens = Tony / Berne / Taborn / Rainey March 29, 2008

“The guitarist at his most cinematic and provocative. It’s fierce, and takes you far away.”—Downbeat

This outstanding band is another prime example of today’s vital new forms in jazz fusion. The release of its CD Prezens for ECM marks the return of vanguard guitarist David Torn, two decades after his breakthrough with Cloud About Mercury. Torn’s early interest in atmospheric yet crackling electronically processed sound accelerates on Prezens, where his tastefully distorted guitar tone and array of digitally sampled sounds meld with keyboardist Craig Taborn’s cybernetic contributions. Taborn plays regularly with alto sax man Tim Berne and drummer Tom Rainey in Berne’s raucous trio Hard Cell. So this unit is readymade to support Torn’s metal-edged outpourings juxtaposed against ever-shifting electro-acoustic soundscapes. Immerse yourself in what the New York Sun called “a dark, eruptive, oceanic sound.” You’ll hear “overlapping bursts and fragments of rhythm, melody, and harmony” that sometimes “crash violently against one another before ebbing into a translucent stillness.”

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