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Infectious Substance |
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Review
from Aural Innovations I had never heard of this duo from Conneticut but this is the bands 8th CD. While listening to the CD for the 3rd time I decided to look into their web page. Damn amazing! "Krakatoa" opens the CD with a slow building but excellent piece of music (20 minutes!). Very nice interplay between the stick and acoustic guitar. It really sounds like more is happening. I particularly like the tracks with tabla, oud and udu.... . Second Sufis certainly are an Aural Innovation and create music made for musicians and people who want to really listen to music. Enjoy. I sure did Click Here for the complete review at Aural Innovations |
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Review
fromYtsejam.com Recorded during at the same time as the band’s previous release, Pearl, Infectious Substance is, as the liner notes remind us,“gritty and raucous.” Indeed, the songs are somewhat more grounded on this plain rather than the more esoteric, spiritual one explored on Pearl. No matter what, the Sufis always manage to deliver special, transcendent music that makes you wish there were more bands capable of taking you where the Sufis do. (That is, of course, before you remember that all others would be cheap imitations.) The real pleasure here, though, is hearing Sufi Mike Gorman unleashed on the electric guitar (as he is on the transcendental disco cut “Abrasion,” or the supremely poignant “Annihilation II.”) Elsewhere, such as on the opening ‘Krakator,” he proves himself a deft master of the acoustic guitar, weaving paradisical melodies and ethereal lines together in an inseparable tangle of musical truth. Gorman’s cohort James Mott is equally deft at Chapman Stick, percussion and the occasional guitar, laying down the framework which Gorman uses as a ladder to stars. One day we’ll all wake up and find ourselves thinking that we’re on the same plain as these guys, then we’ll wake up again and know that nothing will truly bring us there, though with albums like this one, we can get close. Click Here for the complete review at Ytsejam |
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Review
from www.progressivears.com This most recent release from Second Sufis proves to be appropriately named ...Infectious Substance...infectious indeed! Second Sufis is made up of the superbly talented duo of James Mott and Mike Gorman. Recorded in the summer of 1999 and the first half of 2000, this one has fast become my favourite from these guys! As per usual the tracks are recorded live...no overdubs...brilliant use of live digital tape looping and real time sequencing create the track-layering effect..... TI have nothing but high praise for this CD. It took a couple of listens through, but once I got into the zone, each subsequent listen turned into an exhilarating experience. Right from the excellent opening 20 minute track "Krakatoa", which features a really cool breathy kind of loop, each track sets a different mood. From tracks like the hauntingly gorgeous "Aeolus 14 Umbra" which features exotic use of instruments like the Bronze Age Irish Horn, Tibetan Singing Bowl, Chinese Bowl Gong, Rain Stick...to the downright frightful "Reign of Nails" which is dark, scary, and intense as it gets. This track is worth the price of the CD alone! .... I can tell you that much. I for one, look forward in a big way to their outdoor set at Nearfest 2003. I think it'll be one of the musical highlights of the weekend Click Here for the complete review at progressiveears.com |
Pearl |
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Review
from Prog for You ... Listening to the album, I must say that what they’ve been able to pull off is pretty darn impressive. I had to listen to this album several times. The music is unconventional, to say the least. Writing a typical review is difficult, since it is hard to compare Second Sufis to other progressive artists. Mott and Gorman describe their music as, “post-modern/neo-classical/progressive/cyber/trance.” Quite a mouthful, but I think it describes the music accurately. So what does the album sound like? Well, imagine various percussion instruments playing patterns over smooth, long sustaining drone sounds. On top of this add unconventional melody lines played on a variety of instruments. Each composition has its own feel, which is defined by the percussion patterns and sustained tones. The compositions don’t follow the typical verse-chorus structure. Instead, they evolve. The result is a very organic, improvisational feel. I enjoyed the lead electric guitar sounds on Pearl. The tone could be compared to Carlos Santana. The use of the guitar in Second Sufi’s compositions is unconventional though. The guitarist is careful to avoid playing standard guitar riffs. He also avoids using standard scales or modes. Instead, he plays in a conversational, experimental style. At times it feels like the guitar was talking. Not actual words, but a phrasing style that feels like speech. .... Click Here for the complete review at Prog For You |
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Marcelo Sylvera http://www.progressiveworld.net Upon listening to Second Sufis' penultimate album Seven Rays, one couldn't help but notice the shocking impact that technology has had on the way that music is perceived, appreciated, and even created. The mere notion of utilizing sampling as a means of real-time improvisation in itself was already quite intriguing, and this duo certainly was not shy of using its concepts to the fullest of extremes.... this time around, the two constituent members of Second Sufis are back with a new album named Pearl, a renewed vision of music that while signifying a change does not disregard the band's previous approach, and a whole new lease on life, abstraction, and focus.... ....Instrumental convergence, intuition, and intention are in fact so well brought together that "Guernica," for instance, is an ominous and sometimes hellish exploration of the very emotions carried across by Picasso's renowned masterpiece; a perfect musical interpretation of war brought into pure terror-struck abstraction.... ....the real-time sampling, looping, and overall technology manipulation remains present throughout. What James Mott and Mike Gorman have achieved is thus quite admirable, as they have completely dominated their electronic devices and subjugated them into an almost spiritual state, instead of allowing their musical vision to be overwhelmed.... . The result comes partly from the fact that Second Sufis has relied considerably more on pure percussion sounds this time around, partly from the primeval human essence that now abounds by reflecting the meditative world music qualities of repetition or slow progression.... ....It isn't quite world music, but is inevitably tied to it; it isn't quite ambient, although that general quality does exist. It simply is Second Sufis, bringing its vision back home. Click Here for the complete review at Progressive World. Once the Progressive World web page appears, click on Reviews. Look for Second Sufis under "S." . |
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Sergio Vilar http://ar.geocities.com/nucleusprog2 For this... album, Second Sufis included live different recorded tracks, without overdubs, between the summer of 1999 and the first half of 2000 in which integrated instruments of acoustic character inside an electric and electronic musical base. Many of the tracks are cut of live performances made during the year 2000... "Pearl" contains pieces that possess an absolutely identifiable shine, the climatic "Annihilation III" with memorable stick passages in charge of James Mott next to a Mike Gorman that shines interpreting electric guitar, Tabla, Dhumbek and electronic drums, or the 26 minutes of "Pearl", the theme, that they don't offer truce to our senses. Two high points inside an impeccable album in which Second Sufis is able to find a personal aesthetics starting from the experimentation and of the good pleasure when composing music. In a plagued year of excellent editions, Second Sufis adds its name to the list of big creators. My congratulations friends Click Here for the complete review at Nucleus. Once the Nucleus web page appears, click Progressive & Symphonic, then click Reviews. Look for Second Sufis under "S." . |
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www.waysidemusic.com Click Here for the complete review at Wayside Music. Pearl is listed two or three pages in. |
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www.lasercd.com Click Here for the source page at LaserCD.com. |
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www.aural-innovations.com Click Here for the complete review at Aural Innovations. |
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Jedd Beaudoin - Contributing Editor Click Here for the complete review at ytsejam.com. |
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(Member: notallwhowander) Pearl is a little over an hour of improvised music broken into eight unequal tracks; eclectic, spacey, meditative, and tasty. Is it any good? Oh, yes, very good. While essentially experimental and completely improvised, one is not hit in the face with avant-garde dissonance, or given the impression that the musicians at any time forget to keep the music moving forward. So what's it like? Pearl is a mellow ride to places not wholly of this earth. A spell of alien mystery pervades the disc. One keeps asking, "Where would I hear this music?" On a caravan crossing the red sands of a Martian desert, in a jazz cafe locked in geosynchronous orbit around Jupiter, or during a long slow interstellar drift through the Crab Nebula are a few that come to mind ...... The explorations presented are cohesive, melodic, and reward active listening as well as passive enjoyment ...... ....... The album meets or exceeds anything found on the experimental sides of Pink Floyd's Ummagumma, and is easily equal in quality to much of Robert Fripp's Soundscape material. If either of those have appealed to you, you'll hear Pearl for the rare jewel it is. (Yes sir, I like it. ) Click Here for the complete review at progressiveears.com. |
Seven Rays |
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Marcelo Sylvera http://www.progfreaks.com A band like Second Sufis, beyond any shadow of doubt, deserves praise for sticking to its guns and engaging in musical exploration that is bound never to reach any vague semblance of popularity..... The approach in itself is not bad, as "Soil of Contentment" and "Somewhere in the 20th Century" do get their point across in their approximate four-minute duration, while "Annihilation" has some outstanding moments, but a sense of excessive abstraction... was.... too much for this reviewer. -Click Here for the complete review at Progfreaks. Once the Progfreaks web page appears, click Reviews, then click Review Archives. Look for Second Sufis under "S." . |
Slave Labor on Mars |
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Sergio Vilar http://ar.geocities.com/nucleusprog2 Mike Gorman in electric guitar and James Mott in bass they announce us by means of the theme “Purple Twilight” what will spread through the fifteen themes of their responsibility that integrate “Slave Work on Mars”, Second Sufis's premiere discographic.... The combination of sonorities of the stick with the guitar, added to the keyboards and the voices that it contributes the participation like guest of Jerome Pier, produces one of the best works in a group linked to Guitar Craft aesthetics..... Click Here for the complete review at Nucleus. Once the Nucleus web page appears, click Progressive & Symphonic, then click Reviews. Look for Second Sufis under "S." . |