Tenk Van Dool & Paul Sears - 2024 - Aperiodic Grok

(41:44; Deko Entertainment)

Track list:
1. This Song Walks Into a Bar 4:16
2. Empty Hall and the Dancing Shadows 5:01
3. Katie and Natalie 4:57
4. The Line at Weird Walter's Wake 4:25
5. Köln 1:59
6. Berkeley Barn Dance 4:06
7. It's Raining in Casmalia 4:07
8. Complacency Catastrophe 4:24
9. The Royal Court and the Dirt Beneath 5:00
10. Turn Back Time 3:29

Line-up:
Tenk van Dool - organ, keyboards, Mellotron, piano, synthesizers, bass, guitars, mandolin
Paul Sears - drums, percussion


Prolusion.
Musicians Tenk van Dool and Paul Sears have both been active musicians since the 1970s, albeit with rather different career trajectories from what I understand. How they came to work together is a matter I'm blissfully unaware of, but it will probably be a delightful experience for many people that they chose to do so. The end result of their collaboration is the album "Aperiodic Grok". Initially a self released album, for a short period of time, but due to being picked up by Deko Entertainment the album will now be officially launched in September 2024.

Analysis.
This album is an all instrumental affair, and very much the result of studio recordings too as every instrument is handled by these two musicians. Sears handling drums and percussion and van Dool catering for everything else. Which is quite a lot. What the due accomplish on this album is, for me at least, to create something of a love letter to the art of creating music with a progressive approach and a progressive spirit.

In many ways I believe that the opening song 'This Song Walks Into a Bar' represents the spirit of the album in a very good manner due to how it seamlessly navigates between and combine aspects of jazz, jazzrock, progressive rock, hard rock and possibly also symphonic progressive rock. With a fluency that kind of indicates that at least one of the persons involved and probably both have more than a little bit of experience in playing with bands that makes use of improvisation as one of the tools in their toolbox. In this case it isn't exactly a matter of the song itself appearing to have improvised features, although that may very well be the case, but it is rather the fluency in which style details and orientations are tossed about that gives me associations towards musicians that are well aware of improvisations and that apply some of the skills gained by playing material of that nature into the composition.

Otherwise I note that the twosome to a lesser or greater extent play around with the handful of style variations called out, and that they also bring in some moods and atmospheres that I associate with sacral music on a few occasions. We get a very charming instance of a dirty bassline with the guitar added to that groove later on, but also off kilter and quirky creations that may have borrowed an idea or two from the likes of Robert Fripp; albeit executed in a bit of a different manner I'll hastily add. A tiny little bit of a folk music flirt finds it's way on to the album towards the end too, and prior to that we also get some excursions into slower paced and more atmospheric laden landscapes.

That this album concludes with a number that opens with a little bit of a cosmic feel and then segues over to what I'd describe as a warm sounding and retro-oriented charmer of a jazz tune strikes me as highly appropriate, as the jazz and jazzrock undercurrent is a defining aspect of this production. And that we have a song where the opening part and the subsequent phase the song is transported into may make the listener feel a little bit like a stranger in a strange land, that may be an instance of grok. Possibly an aperiodic one at that.

Conclusion.
While this isn't an album that may be all that typical of that tradition of jazz and progressive rock, for my sake this is an album I'll sort under the jazzrock umbrella. In many ways this is a retro-oriented affair as I regard it, an album that celebrate the progressive approach and the progressive spirit of making, creating and exploring music without heeding traditions or conventions all that much. An expressive and creative take on instrumental progressive rock and jazzrock if you like, filled with the sounds and especially with the spirit of what many would describe as the golden age of music in general and the golden age of progressive rock in particular. And it is a solid and suitably unpredictable foray into these landscapes too as far as I'm concerned.

Olav "Progmessor" Björnsen, August 2024

Links:
https://tenkvandool.bandcamp.com/
http://www.paulsears.net/
https://www.dekoentertainment.com/