Review: David MacKenzie & Josh Johnston - Notes Home

David MacKenzie & Josh Johnston - Notes Home
2008, Shandon Records (Ireland)

Dublin is home to David MacKenzie and Josh Johnston, but much of their writing gets done on holiday in Italy and France. Hence the title of their sophomore album, Notes Home. MacKenzie & Johnston were accomplished musicians before coming together. David MacKenzie began his professional career with the BBC Northern Ireland Radio Orchestra. He has played with various ensembles throughout Europe and has recorded with Elmer Bernstein, John Barry, U2, Shania Twain and The Corrs. Josh Johnston has recorded or performed with Roesy, Kila, Declan O'Rourke, Karl Scully and Ronan Swift, and counts The Beatles, Billy Joel, Elton John, Alan Parsons, Ben Folds and Moxy Fruvous among his influences. MacKenzie and Johnston's debut album, A Minor Happiness was a straight-forward duet of violin and piano mix originals and covers, but for Notes Homes, the duo tackles the musical world of Stephane Grappelli and Joe Venuti with thirteen original tunes that transcend the spirit of the two jazz masters.

Notes Home opens with The Latecomer, a vibrant and mildly rambunctious work that dances on the edges of Bee-Bop and Rockabilly. MacKenzie & Johnston dance around each other like a pair of prize-fighters, and when they meet musical sparks fly. Cap Mortola is a lilting tune, perfect for dancing. Things take a dark and sentimental turn on Silk, a light samba perfect for the parlor or piazza. Place Carnot perfectly present and past, with guitar and violin in perfect sync throughout. MacKenzie And Johnston take things down a notch with La Nabonnaise, one of the simpler and most stoically pretty songs on Notes Home.

Minor Happiness was not my favorite tune on the first listen through, but I have to admit it grows on you. The song is pure joy in melancholy blue with a melody that sticks with you and an arrangement that's a hair's-breadth from perfect. Broadband Blues takes another tack, with a light and airy theme that plays like a fragrant summer's evening breeze. The low point of the album, a misnomer, is Waiting. This is simple dinner jazz, perfectly executed; a musical resting place before the final stretch. Wistful Thinking leads into the highlight of the album. Point Neuf is a deliciously dizzy waltz, with the violin dancing like a dervish. Don't be surprised if Point Neuf causes you to push the replay button many times over. MacKenzie and Johnston close out with the highly danceable Sliding Scale. The piano is bedrock here, with the violin providing the fireworks.

David MacKenzie & Josh Johnston make all the right moves on Notes Home. Fans of Django Reinhart, skeptical of all of the artists out there who "sound like" Reinhardt, will be pleasantly surprised by the chemistry and musicianship on Notes Home. MacKenzie & Johnston don't try to be Reinhardt and Venuti; instead they pay tribute to their legacy, staying close enough to the masters to be in the ballpark but original enough to bring that classic sound forward into the 21st century as vibrant as it ever was. Make sure you get your Notes Home.

Rating: 4 Stars (Out of 5)

You can learn more about David MacKenzie and Josh Johnston at www.myspace.com/davidandjosh or http://www.davidandjosh.com/, where you can purchase a copy of Notes Home.

Review: Kowtow Popof - Exalted Headband

Kowtow Popof - Exalted Headband
2009, Wampus Multimedia

Kowtow Popof is a Washington, DC area singer-songwriter who'd developed a distinctive taste for instrumentals that mix organic and electronic instrumentation. This form of Organica has developed a bit over time, finding fruition in Kowtow Popof's latest CD, Exalted Headband. Inspired by cinematic composers such as Bernard Herrmann and John Barry as well as electronic pioneers Ryuichi Sakamoto and Bill Nelson, Kowtow Popof wrote Exalted Headband with a cinematic scope in mind, using recurring thematic elements to construct an integrated series of compositions that work as a stand alone modern Organica symphony.

Exalted Headband is extremely intricate and nuanced in both composition and performance, opening with the Acoustic/Electric hybrid of Swimming Downhill, which sounds a bid like Windham Hill updated for the digital age. Enigma Of The Spokes continues in this vein, but has a more European sound, mixing acoustic guitar with electronically-generated strings for lovely soaring passages you'll want to play again and again before branching into piano/synth duets that are as pretty but perhaps not quite as imaginative. Kairos '77 is an intriguing composition, struggling with its own identity crisis between a theme of hope or despair. This is a piece I'd love to hear broken down for live instruments, and I think there is a lot of beauty in the depths that electronic instrumentation can seek but not quite find. Kung Fu Sunset sounds like what might have happened if Vince Guaraldi had fallen in love with space-age Electronica rather than Jazz.

Run To Daylight features one of three primary themes from Exalted Headband quite prominently. The Daylight Theme is nearly a stand-alone melody here, sounding like something out of 1970's Jazz-Pop set to a dance beat. Exalted Headband (Funkspiel Fringe) sounds like a theme to a 1970's detective show, right down to the Chicago-style horns. Theme From Lucky Guy sounds like the theme to a show you might find on ESPN in part A with a creepy transition or bridge. My favorite track on the CD is Balloon Bazooka; a surreal waltz that devolves into a computer-generated electronic composition that will invade your brain and stay there with a thematic element that intrigues. Rebreather is a fun listen, using a synth voice-generated melody as a foil to its thematic expression. Other highlights include Chronis, Children Of The Teeth and Floaters.

Kowtow Popof is an unusually placid voice in electronic music, searching for thematic order where chaos reigns supreme. His use of musical elements from across various cultures and schools of musical thought suggests significant classical/theory training, and opens doors for Popof that many musicians might not even know are there. Exalted Headband works on so many levels because of Kowtow Popof's willingness to try anything. Exalted Headband is hopefully a herald of things to come.

Rating: 4 Stars (Out of 5)

You can learn more about Kowtow Popof at http://www.wampus.com/ or www.myspace.com/kowtowpopof. You can purchase a copy of Exalted Headband as either a CD or download at www.cdbaby.com/cd/kowtow6.