Hopefully my rating doesn't anchor this album down unduly, but this was not for me. I found this stressful to listen to. Not good-stressful like Giacinto Scelsi or Chelsea Wolfe. Stressful like I was being subjected to an unpleasant stimulus that I could not end and could only wait out. This is not my first avant-garde jazz album, but I've probably heard fewer than ten. To be fair, I understand that avant-garde jazz takes a trained ear to appreciate, and that a significant amount of its value is in the musical theory and technical details, but as someone who listens to music and doesn't play it, I simply found it a mess to listen to; unpleasant and frustrating chaos that felt like work. I have not thrown in the towel on jazz, but this is not what will be my eventual gateway album. Mea culpa.
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