Jon Durant
BRIEF LIGHT
(ALCHEMY)

Textural music has a wide embrace. For Jon Durant, guitarist and owner of the Cohasset-based Alchemy label, it’s often a swirl of sonic pastels that blends new age’s passive melodicism with the rhythmic anarchy of King Crimson and the slow evolutionary nature of Brian Eno.

Which makes this album, where he’s joined by Crimson bassist Tony Levin and guitarist Randy Roos, among others, quite utilitarian. Music heads can focus on the weave of Levin’s thunder-deep bass and the odd-job steel-pan-like percussion on 'River' as Durant’s guitar sails across the top like a hot breeze. Or they can slip into a reverie listening to the tranquil skyscapes of 'In Her Memories, She Floats.' The less obsessive can simply let the disc play in the background as a soothing partner to work or relaxation. And that’s no insult. The painstaking effort Durant has made in composing these numbers and carefully layering their sounds is obvious. His is the kind of deft craftsmanship that requires study to appreciate, since it’s so easy to ignore as these nine tracks flow efficiently by.

Issue Date: January 3 - 10, 2002

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