Rob Mazurek Exploding Star Orchestra — Dimensional Stardust
International Anthem/LP, Digital
I just want to get this out of the way: Hot damn! What a phenomenal, uplifting album!
Biased pleasantries brushed aside, hot damn, what a phenomenal, uplifting album!
Mazurek has been exploring all forms of jazz and jazz-like music for 30 years, but his recent output via International Anthem has been transformative in reintroducing the wide-scoped genre for modern audiences. Sometimes contemplative, sometimes minimal, Mazurek’s work always inhabits a space that is timely yet timeless.
With his 14-piece Exploding Star Orchestra (ESO) in tow, Dimensional Stardust takes us on a trip-hop, funk, and electro-rock journey that harkens back to turn-of-the-century jam-jazz (Medeski, Martin, and Wood’s The Dropper or Soulive’s Doin’ Something quickly come to mind). It’s a feel-good blast that isn’t beholden to genre, or the limitations of stuffing other genres into it like a turducken.
In fact, Dimensional Stardust is rudimentary when all things are considered. Despite the cacophony of instruments and styles clashing in any of the album’s compositions, there’s still a measured presence in sound design. It’s an album that cries out for an interdimensional turntable to properly play it, so that we can be set adrift within the “careening prisms” of this opus.
If you have any love for even the metaphysical idea of jazz, this is your jam. Don’t hesitate. You need to feel these rhythms, noises, and ideas coursing through you. This is an album of exuberance and vitality. Go capture that feeling in song before you forget what it’s like when the real world comes crashing down (and it hurts inside).
