Dixon Nacey: The Edge of Chaos (Rattle)

 |   |  <1 min read

Beeper
Dixon Nacey: The Edge of Chaos (Rattle)

Auckland guitarist/composer Dixon Nacey here with the usual suspects/fellow travellers – saxophonist Roger Manins, keyboard player Kevin Field, bassist Olivier Holland, drummer Andy Keegan and guest vocalists on one track -- slides effortlessly between shapeshifting jazz-rock (Habituation), bouncy bop (Bench Wrecker) to delicacy (Etiquette, which suggests he could do a refined version of Come As You Are if he so chose).

The gently exploratory Taupo with singers Jonathan Leung and Chelsea Prastiti is a delightfully mystical piece, and the understated Ballad 2 is a real highpoint for all the players..

Although Nacey says in the liner notes this project began as a project for his Masters at the University of Auckland this doesn't feel like a calling card of styles or an academic exercise. Credit for that must also go to those other musicians who bring some real empathy to these tunes.

Their solos are refined and supportive (Holland on Taupo, Manins on Etiquette, Field on Sketchy by way of example) but this is also very much the confident leader's album and although he says the title reflects how he felt pushed to his limits it never sounds like that.

You can hear this album at Rattle's website here.

ELSEWHERE ENCOURAGES ITS READERS TO SUPPORT NEW ZEALAND ARTISTS BY BUYING THEIR MUSIC DIRECTLY RATHER THAN STREAM THROUGH SPOTIFY WHERE THEIR RETURNS ARE NEGLIGIBLE

Share It

Your Comments

post a comment

More from this section   Jazz at Elsewhere articles index

KIM PATERSON PROFILED, AT AUDIOCULTURE (2019): The modest star of New Zealand jazz

KIM PATERSON PROFILED, AT AUDIOCULTURE (2019): The modest star of New Zealand jazz

In 2012, when the album The Duende by multi-instrumentalist Kim Paterson was released, he was widely acknowledged as one of the senior statesmen in New Zealand jazz. Yet his catalogue of... > Read more

WHERE THE SPIRIT MEETS THE SAX (2024): You got a problem with Muriel?

WHERE THE SPIRIT MEETS THE SAX (2024): You got a problem with Muriel?

Saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist Muriel Grossman is a problem at this point in the 21st century when the culture of complaint is peaking, grievances real or imagined are given oxygen and... > Read more

Elsewhere at Elsewhere

YOU SAY IT'S YOUR BIRTHDAY (2024): And the band begins to play

YOU SAY IT'S YOUR BIRTHDAY (2024): And the band begins to play

Exactly 60 years ago to the day, the Beatles played in Auckland. It was my 13th birthday. I was a huge fan of course. I had their two albums Please Please Me and With the Beatles: the... > Read more

BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2008 Lucinda Williams: Little Honey (Universal)

BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2008 Lucinda Williams: Little Honey (Universal)

After her last, quite exceptional but largely melancholy album West (in part influenced by death in the family) it is almost as if Williams is here staking her claim again to some sassy rock'n'roll... > Read more