Inundating you with a cozy dose of soft sci-fi futurism is Free World Music by Brooklyn’s Rick Parker and Dali’s Li Daiguo, a randomly collided pair of quantum radicals sitting at a similar alt-world-classical tilt. Parker’s trombone style is both traditional and new, augmented by a cybernetic array of electronics. Li also has a distinct talent for shredding conventions on whatever his weapon of choice happens to be at the time (here he’s tickling the pipa, there he’s circumnavigating a cello, etc).
The rhythmic skeleton of “Make Way For The Mane Of Spit And Nails”, the second track off Free World Music, is a burst of staccato quarter notes from Parker, and what creeps in among those bones is what makes the album as a whole so intriguing. Towards the end of the track you hear the trombone head off to territory it visits frequently throughout the record, ricocheting out into the kind of reverb-ether usually reserved for grand space opera. Li’s spidery pipa lends a truly alien feel, like some kind of exo-jazz or coolly melting chamber music shuttling between worlds on pneumatic tubing. Free World Music could soundtrack the opening credits of a news reel from an alternate (better, purer) dimension, or maybe the cantina scene of a Star Wars directed by Jodorowsky. It frees world music by cutting spongiform wormholes through the badly aged science fiction futures we’ve outgrown or proven ourselves unable to realize. The literary track titles all point bewilderingly somewhere else, not sure where exactly, but a name like “the city’s glory was defined not only by every citizen wearing silk robes, or by their seamless melding of modern technology with the human body, but by the compassion that emanated from the design of their matching stilettos” is so long that it must be true on a planet.
But Free World Music is clean, it’s soft, sorta like the blunt parade of sponges in this video. Recommended use: jack in, turn up, and stare at the stars where you wish you were.
Catch Free World Music live at this string of release shows:
07.29.16 - Philadelphia, PA - Vox Populi
07.30.16 - Brooklyn, NY - Shapeshifter Lab
08.02.16 - Charlottesville, VA - Second Street Art Gallery
08.03.16 - Richmond, VA - Balliceaux
More about: Li Daiguo, Rick Parker
