Record Reviews

SATAKE, AKIRA ~ COOLER HEADS PREVAIL ALULA 1003 ~ JAPAN ~ World Music & Folklore `Cooler Heads Prevail` represents a pioneering step in the outwardly rippling expansion of what the banjo is `allowed` to do. Though an accomplished bluegrass player, Akira is also able to sidestep the culturally specific trappings of Earl Scruggs` style to cast an unfettered compositional eye over a fecund musical landscape. He then selects the elements that will best convey his creative intent. That intent, in combination with sterling production and ace musicianship, enables you to proceed on what is certainly a grand musical journey. Awash in a wealth of cross-cultural rhythms and instrumental textures, Akira has the ability to seamlessly fuse wide-ranging ethnicities within an individual track to create a piece so sonically holistic as to become virtually indescribable. Not a wholesale plundering of world musics, but rather a heartfelt nation-blending put to the higher service of each composition. For grandeur, sweep, and sheer cine-musatic spectacle, few can surpass this offering from the mind, heart, and fingers of Akira Satake.

CD 1 Recommend To A Friend