The new Rob Mazurek and Exploding Orchestra album, “Lightning Dreamers,” is the kind of listening experience—the kind of aesthetic experience—that I like best. You have no idea where the music is going to go, but you trust that you’re in for a good time. There’s confidence, authority, and ambition from the start. Some of my most memorable listening experiences, reading experiences, watching experiences start like that: some level of bewilderment gives way to excitement and understanding.
Mazurek said that “Lightning Dreamers” is based in part on his experience on the Rio Negro in Brazil, and particularly on the custom, in that area, of taking a boat to the dividing line (the Meeting of the Waters) between the Black River and the Amazon/Solimões River. Mazurek’s comments on this are really beautiful: “The feeling of moving between and through these great bodies of water is etched in my soul forever. The visual and sonic material (both thematic and imagined) evokes the spirits past, present and future along this mighty river. The undercurrents of time, the movement of storm systems in the sky, the gentle sway of a boat moving upriver, the power and intensity when the wind decides to blow and the torrential rains fall. The sound of the electric eels below, the melodies of the inhabitants along the way, the shattering blasts from lightning in the sky. The river flows on and on and on.”
Reading this after hearing the album, it totally makes sense: so many of the tracks here switch from relatively smooth-flowing patterns and repeating phrases to turbulence and volatility; a low-flow channel suddenly flooded by a burst of rain from a summer storm. You can hear it especially in what Mazurek calls the “Black River Suite,” the last two tracks on the album—“Black River” and “White River”—but it happens on almost every track on the album, a spirit of unexpected change, music flowing according to its own laws.
“Shape Shifter” starts in a somewhat more conventional way than some of the preceding tracks on the album, with statement of the main theme by Mazurek’s trumpet and the synth bass. The band runs through it a few times, taking a breather here and there to let Gerald Cleaver’s fantastic drumming shine. Then, a little more than 2 minutes in, it all changes. Cleaver picks up the pace and the band rolls into a super-kinetic groove, with a long showcase for Jeff Parker’s insane guitar playing (all over this track and all over this album, Parker adds beautiful textures and sounds in all the right places). “Shape Shifter,” like the other songs on the album, is deeply composed, deeply felt—every time I listen to this album, I feel like I come away with something different.