Ari Lehtela’s The Year the Earth Stood Still is an improvisational album of guitar/piano (and anything else Ari can play!) with Tom Harling’s sax and Dave Bullard’s percussion that, somehow, gets everything right during a weird year when everything else just went wrong.
It’s not an album for the lover of quiet sunset jazz thoughts. Rather, this music zigs, floats, evaporates, strums (with an Eastern vibe!), mourns, weeps, pulses – and in an odd melodic sense, remembers this COVID year through a clever (and understated) impressionistic jazz with a very melting musical eyeball.
The first tune, “Prologue,” is a brief bit that recalls the loose jazzy sound of (the great!) Henry Cow on their first Leg End with a song like “Teenbeat Introduction.” But that’s just the beginning of Lehtela’s pretty adventurous ride. There are odd tunes that await the patient listener.
“Sight Distance” is a glorious guitar-strummed tune that haunts the auditory evening like deep-woods dense echo. In contrast, “March Madness” is acoustic guitar blues from another solar system that whirls and tantalizes, while a soft piano and honking sax contribute to the lovely sonic trance mission. Odd: The tune evokes the eerie freeform improv of Genesis’ “The Waiting Room.”
The brief “Guise” recalls the jagged acoustic guitar beauty of (the also great!) Ralph Towner. Lehtela’s eight minute-plus “Pandemonium” is a wondrous ride through a melodic funhouse. This tune, as said, zigs, floats, evaporates, and honks a bit. As my friend, Kilda Defnut often says, “Clever cacophony can explain humdrum chaos of everyday life in a wonderful and oddly beautiful way.” This tune makes brain synapses laugh, which is a good thing — especially during this Year the Earth Stood Still!
And, in a weird way, this is simply every family’s oddball jazzy cousin who loves the colorful impressionistic ECM sound of, say, John Surman’s The Amazing Adventures of Simon Simon, and also dreaming of a third date with the Romantic soul of Claude Debussy’s “Prelude to an Afternoon of a Fawn.” That’s an obscure reference, but Ari Lehtela’s album is worthy of several obscure references! The tune is an amazing sonic ride.
There’s more impressionistic jazz. “Foot Divide” reels and dips (with an Eastern vibe!) and envelopes more near-cacophony that makes, ironically, melodic sense in our very un-melodic world. The brief “Interlude” is strummed guitar that conjures even more of an Eastern vibe. It’s a nice tangible tune that introduces the 10-minute plus “Blursdays,” which is a tone poem of guitar, sax, and percussion that could well be the soundtrack for interplanetary travel with its deep burbles – or at the very same time, it could be the musical and mystical brethren of William Turner’s Rain Speed and Steam painting.
The tune drips like spooky soup and truly taps (with a piano soul!) into the melodic human minutia of a jazzy life. This is a blessed listen for those of us who love the ephemeral ECM sound.
“Spiral” really gets again into that (often-mentioned) ECM mantra. This is colorful melodic jazz with an almost sacred chamber vibe, and the staccato piano playing recalls the weird vibe of Keith Tippett’s performance on the King Crimson song “Cat Food,” danced out over seven minutes. This is free-roaming organic chicken jazz.
Then, Ari Lehtela returns with seven-plus more minutes of pulsing jazz on “Conflicting Reports,” recalling the vaporous sound of Terje Rypdal in his most deeply impressionistic sound of the brilliant Descendre album. Big complement, there! Ditto for the title track for The Year the Earth Stood Still. The tune has epic chords, while a deep soul percolates while a saxophone roams the cathedral with a really nice religious confessional thought. And finally, Lehtela’s really brief “Epilogue” exits (stage left!) with a jazzy funhouse 30-second punctuation mark.
Sometimes, weird sounds just make a lot of sense. Ari Lehtela’s music is filled with, to quote the press release, “wildly curious sounds.” And, perhaps, this album is a godsend of sanity in the Year the Earth Stood Still, which zigs, floats, evaporates, strums, mourns, weeps, pulses, and, yes, honks, in a defiant and melodic very human way that, thankfully, even after all these years, can make our brain synapses inveigle a grin – because this record, somehow, gets everything right in a year when everything else just went wrong.
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