O venerable indifferent apathist, please forgive my sinful ignorance. For I prefer Grimes over Purity Ring and fail to dislike iamamiwhoami after no longer cool it is for her music to like. I also do not see the blasphemous side of The Money Store, prize the occasional hearing of Witch House and indulge in the reprehensible crime of consistently enjoying Metal subgenres not called after a color. I truly am a waste of human flesh and resources of a kind previously unheard. I have a taste for Free Improvisation, Drone, Noise, Modern Classical. And most inexcusable, I kinda dislike Jazz. Truly my cranium is void of all but void itself. Incorrectly applied krokodil should become my fate for transgressions of this magnitude.
Uh, wait. It would appear that my crippling inner frustrations and lack of self-esteem are infiltrating into my writing. Please excuse me while I fix that problem *your screen suddenly fades out and back in again in your imagination*.
That's better. I don't feel as dopamine-and-REM-deprived now as I did when I wrote that intro. My heart's now in its right place, as in lodged between the correct organs, muscles and osteoblastic crowbars, and it's appropriately pumping caffeine and glucose while the haematocytes watch the carnage completely motionless and contemplate the paradox of a Russian having the symbol of Capitalism for metaphorical blood rather than ethanol. Nah, just kidding, I slept a few times. Speaking of sleep and using big words as a cheap substitute for humor, I probably shouldn't just throw a cliffhanger into the air without any sort of resolution, so let me explain exactly what bugs me about the cool and refined and cultured and cultural genre that AP Quinteto's 6 e 5 is a part of.
Based on my knowledge of Jazz thus far, which equates to an entire encyclopedia on the subject, burnt down to anorexic bite sized bits of info here and there that anyone knows through intuition anyway, a handful of classics that I heard whilst attempting to multitask, one gig in which I was far more interested by how awkward I looked Nile-tee-and-beer-bottle-clad, and half a gig in which I was extremely busy drunkenly mumbling an extended version of my thesis from the first paragraph to anyone who would listen, the genre revolves around technique. Now, that would have been all fine and dandy if it weren't taken so literally by some people. It's like the musicians race through all the delicious twists and turns you can make within a structural and dynamic backbone so they can reach their personal soloing nirvana in which the listener's snoring isn't even present, only caring to go back to what they were doing in the first place as an indicator of when to clap or when to press the replay button, depending on the medium. And in 6 e 5, this is done 6.7 out of a possible 7 times, and it's an hour-long album! Imagine that you go to a restaurant and take your order, you skip the appetizers because screw them and they serve you the main course straight away. It's very tasty. Then they proceed to serve the same main course another six times. How would you feel, Mr. Creosote?
The solos and solo sections aren't the problem, considering that they're fantastic and all, it's just how many of them there are. AP Quinteto definitely know what they're doing within this limbo world of endless possibilities: they've got some admirable skills at making sprawling yet dynamic sections where one instrument steals the spotlight for a pop song's length while everyone takes subtle goes at challenging this temporary alpha male. But then these happen in very much the same way a bunch of more times and the listener is left to await the sweet release of death. And most of all the quintet appears to have some serious problems when they try to fit these beasts into the structured receptacles, or themes, as they're called by the sane, which they seem to have composed separately. They have though managed to ensure that “6 e 5” and “Espero (ou não)” kept their identity as singular cohesive compositions, but that's about it. All others sound, to a certain extent, like a bunch of ideas spliced together somehow. Then, there are all the consequential problems one has to confront: “Irene (Balada Para)” ends its lifetime with great fanfare but no reason, “Inominada” has only one memorable moment when the second solo transitions back to the theme, which I guess was somehow supposed to save the whole thing from being completely forgettable generic drum/guitar interplay, and it's torturously easy to predict how any track is going to shape up after “Essegê” gives a blueprint to all of them. It's still great stuff for a casual listen, but if this music is to be listened to casually and casually only, then why release it in album format and risk the possibility of being victim of a curious/obsessive-compulsive listener?
One thing I enjoy hearing in an album is how the band evolves along the way and begins adding new elements to their sound. I find it jarring how 6 e 5 does the opposite by having the drummer, bassist and guitarist completely forget that they had another two band members lying around the rehearsal room for the two final tracks, but I guess that's just personal opinion. My final conclusion is that I've spent the entire review vastly underplaying the good aspects this debut reveals, so I'll talk about them now.
I really liked the intricacy shown in both the solos and the themes, the jumping around from idea to idea in a non-nonsensical way, when they did manage to do that. The themes and riffs were excellent, the instrumentation had a tendency to be rather catchy throughout, and despite sounding pretty much exactly how an uninitiate would expect a Jazz album to sound, AP Quinteto still manages to display hints to a characteristic vibe. But most of all, I like the way they work around with dynamics. They really know how to keep a song going forward what comes to transitions. They also make some interesting experiments along the way, such as how “Espero (ou não)” introduces the listener to a theme and then reconstructs that theme through the winding solos that you'd have grown to detest by then and would probably detest less after the referred track.
So my actual final conclusion is that 6 e 5 is a collection of great jazzy ear candy, but when you remain conscious about what you're listening to, you don't have that much of a good time anymore. Awesome stuff is presented in this album, but then it's presented over and over again in pretty much the same way for 59 minutes. It's like they're trying to get an idea firmly placed in your thoughts when either the idea isn't actually there, or it's absolutely basic but you've been mistaken for a penguin. These guys really like their solos, and I wish they'd like them a lot less, or would cut out some of the more useless bits. Something! Fuck...
Standout tracks:
6 e 5
Espero (ou não)
Cinzento
