Wilma Archer
A Western Circular
Domino
Wilma Archer has steadily made a name for himself across the last 10 years as a producer in demand, and despite collaborative projects and guest production spots, he’s never had the chance to shine on a solo project. Debut effort A Western Circular is a long-awaited welcome party, and it delivers.
This is at its heart a modern jazz album, but it has lots of tricks up its sleeve. It’s a heady instrumental stew, a gothic sort of jazz/classical fusion driven by violin, cello, upright bass and an array of trumpets and saxophones. There are a fair few instrumentals here and a most of them pop. The titular Western Circular is a short instrumental that opens forebodingly like something out of a horror movie before entering more lush, classical territory. It transitions seamlessly into Scarecrow, an exercise in jazz stylistics. Instead of opening and closing with a theme, it bookends different jazz styles, from bebop to keytar-driven jazz fusion, with a memorable repeating riff.
Killing Crab is a steadily climbing and dramatic violin piece with some scraggly acoustic guitar thrown in that sounds like it was recorded on the other side of the room, its string slides intentionally audible. It ends with an array of stringed instruments gradually layered atop one another, in the most beautiful passage from the album.
The album’s one sore point is its over-reliance on instrumental tracks, more a result of track sequencing than a drop-off in quality. Cures & Wounds is pretty, and introduces what sounds like Calypso drums into the mix, but it’s not as striking as earlier tracks. Likewise for Ugly Feelings (Again), a solid but unremarkable slice of jazz noir.
Or maybe the instrumentals grow tiresome because the guest spots are so good. Last Sniff features living legend MF Doom, who lays his trademark obtuse verbiage against the kind of jazzy tiptoeing groove that he was made to front. Samuel T. Herring of Future Islands fame has spots on Decades and The Boon, particularly the latter, a bluesy number whose earthy backing makes him sound much older and wiser than in his main band. But the best of the lot is Cheater, likely to be a cult hit. It’s a one-of-a-kind jam sung brilliantly by r’n’b artist Sudan Archives and underpinned by a bizarre but utterly effective instrumental of wobbling trumpets and stabbing violins.
This is a fine album. By taking the epic jazz approach of Kamasi Washington, spicing up the instrumentation and injecting some pop smarts, Archer has crafted a little jazz gem that should draw in hip hop, RnB, electronica, classical and jazz fans in equal measure.
MATIJA ZIVKOVIC
