Disco Biscuits - The Wind At Four To Fly

Genre rock Publisher Sci Fidelity Records External Links Official Disco Biscuits Website Official Sci Fidelity Records Website

As jam bands tend to do, the Disco Biscuits revere the live show, and their truest fans have no doubt collected soundboard recordings from the concert documented in The Wind At Four To Fly and many more, besides. Another jam band value is eclecticism, the pinnacle of musical talent thought to be the ability to play (or at least convincingly vamp) certain guitar/bass/drums-based styles. The Biscuits have studied the usual suspects of jazz, funk, rock, blues. In interviews they discuss classical influences but they sure aren't evident on this album. The Biscuits carved their niche within jambandia by incorporating elements of electronic dance music, a music that, in at least some crunchy mindsets, is seen as anathema to "real" music. The result of their audacity: "trance fusion."

So what does trance fusion sound like? Yes, it is noodley. Yes, it is tempting to say the never-ending "Basis for a Day" could be tolerated only in an, uh, exceedingly receptive mind-state. But's not why it's called trance, and the familiar trance signifiers-- drum machines, arpeggio synths, snaking sine-wave melodies-- there's not really so much of that, after all. Certainly, no drum machines (though the Biscuits have used one at times on their studio albums). At moments, in for instance "Caterpillar" and "Sweating Bullets," rounded synths echo and dance, reverberating within the framework of a danceable 130 bpm beat. But then the dominant instrument, guitar (natch), swoops in for another resolutely mellow or screechingly anthemic solo. Men start singing uneffected, sincere, sometimes out of tune, nonsensical lyrics. The illusion is shattered.

This music is not devoid of structure, but the structure is expansive, forgiving, with large spaces for unstructured moments. It's about process, and if that's your thing, these two discs are for you, especially the four track, seventy minute disc two. Conservative jam band devotees worried about the trance label need not fear, because three quarters of the album doesn't incorporate even the most timid trance elements; most of the material (from the engaging opener "World Is Spinning" to the silly "Morph Dusseldorf") smells phishy. But if you're a conservative jam band devotee, why buy an official release when you've already burned all the best shows, right, man?