David Murray - Home

David Murray might not be among the best known jazz musicians out there but everyone who know about him seems to love him. Murray has his roots in free jazz but overall I wouldn't categorize him in one single sub-genre of jazz because he tends to experiment a lot with personnel and style. He often switches between octets, big bands, quartets etc. so there is always something interesting and new with each record.

Home is a particular favorite of mine from what I have heard of his work so far. The album was released back in 1981 with an octet. The recording is a loveable mix of swing, bebop and free jazz and it starts wonderfully with a blues piece aptly named Home as it invokes a very nostalgic feeling. It's melodic and it's soothing but as the album progresses from song to song it just gets wilder and wilder. The chains break free but not fully as there is always a stable rhythm section that back the whole thing up. There are coherent choruses and riffs but the solos and some chords are often dissonant and aggressive. Often you will find places in this album where a rhythm section plays this modern type of swing, the saxophones play two different (but intertwined) solos while the piano blasts some strange dissonant chords. It all comes together beautifully and daring. It's as if you got together a really old swing group that's just tired of playing the same songs over and over so they just go wild.


Absolutely love this album. Check it out!

Get it.

The Art of Alice: Madness Returns

Alice: Madness Returns was a game that was released back in 2011. From what I gather it's a remake/sequel of an earlier game called American McGee's Alice. Truth be told I never played Alice: Madness Returns and it's something that won't change very soon (or late). I did play the "original" back in primary school and I remember it being very bleak and hard to control. Most platformer-esque games were like that back in the day when 3D was still a new, clunky, thing. But the game felt unique and memories of it are still stuck in my mind.

What most people, including myself, remember about these two games is their art. The gameplay never really was anything special but the artstyle definitely is interesting if not unique. It was/is a blend of the macabre, Victorian England and early age of industrial revolution. It made the story of Alice look really brooding, and monstrous.

Lucky for us we don't need to trod through the game just to enjoy the art because an artbook has been released for it. In it you'll find what you usually find with artbooks of this kind which is lots of concept art, sketches and fully sized paintings. There are some other interesting things like 3d models and sort of a developers commentary that makes an appearance every page or so which is interesting if you would like to learn more about their ideas and work process.

Certainly an interesting thing to look at

Get it.