Monday, January 16, 2017

Mister Tucker Reviews: Andre Dinuth - Here With You

The following music review comes courtesy of friend and writer Marc S. Tucker, carried over from his newsletter VERITAS VAMPIRUS and is NOT of my doing despite being featured on my blog - please keep this fact firmly in mind for future reference.

ANDRE DINUTH - Here With You
2016 / no label cited
Review written by Marc Tucker - 01/15/2017

SHRED FEST ALERT!!! SHRED FEST ALERT!!! Of all the highly impressive World Fusion musicians who poured materials forth in 2016, Andre Dinuth stands shoulder to shoulder with the best. Loaded to the back teeth with outrageous chops, compositional ingenuity, and any number of ingenious approaches to playing, frequently backed by Jan Hammer-level keyboardist Marthin Siahaan, Here With You is peak-level Return to Forever, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Al DiMeola, Nova, etc. event. I do not speak lightly here.

I don't recognize any of the basic band's players, but they’re all top notch in keeping up with this super-clean speed demon. A decent percentage of personnel rotates as the cuts track their way through one's speakers, but everyone shines like starbursts all through the 10 songs in a release I have little doubt will get a hell of a lot of pass-around among the top dawgz in the industry. Steve Howe, for instance, will swoon when he hears Dinuth's Chet Atkinsy / Flatts 'n Scruggsy "Farm-O-Country", an adept Dixie Dregs-ish ditty that swings like crazy, and John Petrucci will be digging the rapid-fire lyricisms dripping from every corner of the release entire.

Indra Lesmana, a well-proven vet, sits in on one cut, Djitron Pah on another, Andi Rianto on a third, and then there's Eugen Bounty taking up the clarinet for a way cool duet, Andre switching to an acoustic axe. That number takes me back to the 70s when neo-Romantic compositions flourished in the nu-jazz and fusion fields, entranced by the manifold virtues found in all genres and unafraid to incorporate apposite materials with rare grace. In the arts, this is what constitutes evolution.

The opening cut, “Sahara”, the track carrying Lesmana on keyboards, also purveys a muy bitchin' Carnatic/Arabian vocal line by the mono-monikered Moh, who also plays saluang (mis-ID'ed here as "sulang", which actually means "thank you" in Palauan) and whose sung lines I wish they’d shoved more up front in the mix, and steamroller drum work by Yandi Andaputra underscored in tabla by another mononymed gent: Husein. A speedball rollercoasting white-knuckler, the track sets the scene but restricts nothing, as many flavors and tempi are found throughout, from the breakneck to the balladic, though, all prognutz and fusionoids will be happy to find, high drama and Saturn 5 ballistics dominate.

I always regret that I get so loaded down with submissions at the end of each year because its impossible to review everything in the timely manner I'd like, especially given I have no admin, V.V. being a one-man horse…BUT…had I gotten to this in Dec., it would DEFINITELY have gone on the 2016 Year's Best list. Dinuth is a vibrant player with the sort of energies and enthusiasm discerning ears are ever a-thirst for. It's evident he spent God-only-knows how many thousands of hours woodshedding and crafting. Here With You is the gent's second solo gig (the previous one emerged in 2015), though he’s played for a decade with some of the top Timorese/Indonesian musicians, including Tohpati and Dewa Budjana. This disc and its predecessor herald the arrival of an Instant Master well ensconced in the intricacies of the region's superlative styles well informed and re-shaped by a connoisseur's digestion of Western modes. It only remains, then, for you to join the feast.

RELATED LINK:

Andre Dinuth's Official YouTube