Homescape

Description

**** October 2007- Down Beat "Brian Eno's dictum that the studio is the new instrument has come to bear on jazz-related music with the seduction of home-studio production. Like any instrument, home tech doesn't guarantee the success of the end product. Making something worthwhile in this manner now requires avoiding some of the most obvious moves offered up by domestic studio gear. Guitarist Nguyên Lê's foray into the domestic music production front, recorded in 2004 and 2005, has yielded an enjoyable and personal result. Awash in electronic beats and the requisite layering and effects, it manages to retain a strong sense of logic for each track, not turning the whole affair into a mush of pointless mixmastery or overindulgent cross-fades. Lê's guitar remains the fulcrum of Homescape, and it is as clear and resonant as it is brilliant. His solo on the opening track `Starnieri,' with its hyperbolic Vietnamese bends and wonderful palpability, displays his digital powers. The disc's guests, trumpeter and flugelhornist Paulo Fresu, who flew in from Italy to work at Lê's home in Paris, and the guitarist's neighbor, Tunisian oud player and singer Dhafer Youssef, willingly subjected their music to his post-production manipulation. Fresu mines the frequently tapped Miles Davis shaft, but he also finds some nice modified trumpet sounds on `Mali Iwa' that suggest Jon Hassel, especially when Lê pairs them with gulping percussion. On `Des Prés,' Fresu's rich long-tone underpins a nearly goofily French whistling guitar-synth part, while on Billy Strayhorn's `Chelsea Bridge,' they play it relatively straight, elegantly so. Youssef's duets with Lê are quite direct, his voice cradled by the guitar on `Beyti,' his oud egged on by Lê on `Zafaran.' On `Kithâra,' two lutes state the melody together, breaking apart for a guitar solo. Youssef plays with a groovy dance backdrop on `Byzance' to good effect."