Taylor’s Universe- Worn Out (Marvel of Beauty Records MOBCD023)

Multi-instrumentalist, Robin Taylor is back with another release and it features the same crew (Karsten Vogel, Hugh Steinmetz, Klaus Thane, Jakob Mygind, Louise Nipper) with which he has now made many records with but the addition of highly acclaimed jazz guitarist Jon Hemmersam, providing all the lead guitar. He is mainly featured on the opening track, Floating Rats. The track starts very floating with just saxophone as it slowly picks up and the drums, bass and finally guitar join the drone keyboard and horns. At 3mins the track really picks up in intensity and this is when Jon really kicks in with some fluid and fast guitar runs before being counterbalanced by the horns. There is a bit of back and forth between the horns and guitar to keep the track very fluid and interesting and then Robin kicks in with the organ to change the dynamic. Excellent track. Munich is the longest track on the album at 10½ mins and starts with some very happy beautiful horns to compliment the repetitive almost Kraftwerk like synths running beneath. Things change completely when the uptempo bass line takes the lead and the different horn players just jam away and Robin comes back with some organ as well. The track takes many different dynamics and includes adding some effects to the horns. Robin plays a major role in this track. . Imaginary Church is much shorter and features the organ quite prominent again in this 4½min track. Cruelty in Words is a quite happy track with cool dynamics and a mix of organ and piano in the quiet parts and the horns in the more melodic parts. Some interesting drums (sound almost programmed, artificial) in the mid section. Jon is hardly playing in this track only adding a couple of short solos near the end. Excellent track. Jens in Afghanistan starts with some military snare drum theme and some flute like horns. There is a sample of something about war playing in the background. The theme slowly gets a bit darker in nature but returns to the happy theme. Eventually the military snare drumming ends and then the track is very saxophone dominated with a repeated theme by the others for a period until the end.  Sergeant Pepperoni ends the CD. This track is 8½ mins long and starts with some spacey organ and saxophone as the others slowly enter the soundscape. Jon plays some fantastic guitar in this track and about half way through the track devolves into some freeform spacey chaos before reappearing out the end into the main theme again. Cool.. Another really excellent release from Robin and his creative crew..

http://www.progressor.net/robin-taylor/