Cheap Flux (Music) (Ben Monder) Price

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Customer Reviews of Flux

I'm really struck by this music. The music, for the most part, is darkly dreamy. The cover displays a painting called "space jazz" and it looks like a picture of space (stars, galaxies, gasses etc), and it pretty much reflects the overall tone of the music. Dark, dreamy, mysterious, beautiful. The song titles also: "Food for the Moon", "Orbits", "Propane Dream", "Don't Look Down", evoke a kind of spacey feel. But, as the title suggests, there is a lot of movement too. After all, this is "jazz." The rhythm section here (Jim Black and Drew Gress) are amazingly fluid, aggressively propulsive, graceful on slower tunes, and really play a huge role in defining the music. Their roles are definetely collaborative rather than suppportive, which adds tremendous richness to the music. This isn't just about guitar, its about guitar, bass and drums.

What moves me most about music are the intangibles, the psychographic effects of melodies, rhythms and sounds that can't really be explained in words, but have the power to move us, so the listening becomes more of an experience and less an appreciation. And I guess what makes this music so special is that combination of spaciness and virtuosity (Ben has incredible tecnique), that combination of amazing guitar with equally amazing drums and base, which allows you to listen to the music a lot, love it, and never tire of it.

The best guitar trio cd of the nineties
This cd is a must have for every serious guitarist. Ben Monder takes electric guitar playing to heights that have never been reached before. His modern language and technique - both in composing and improvising -, although sometimes resemblant to Frisell's, (combined with his pristine sound) can be defined as the most advanced in the world. Guitarists have always been poor in language, compared to the pianists, so, listening to this cd, every guitarist will learn how to fill the gap.
Guitar is a polyphonic instrument, but electric guitarist worldwide seem not to know it. Monder shows how to use the guitar in a polyphonic way, using musical material which belongs to our times, the XX century music.
Monder's compositions are beautiful and complex, his solo pieces are wonderful.
The other members of the trio, bassist Drew Gress and drummer Jim Black are wonderful musicians, and add a lot to Monder's music.

Challenging but Rewarding Music
Okay, for you guitarists out there, this music may be an affront to your ideas about what is technically possible on the guitar. For the more jaded among us, it may be an affront to what you consider to be desirable guitar sounds. If you enjoy technically amazing guitar playing (esp. the solo pieces) and can sit comfortably through two hours of John Cage, you will enjoy this fine album. Not to say that this music is never melodic or open. There are many menorable tunes and the texture is tastefully varied. This is possibly Ben's most challenging (to listen to) album. Most of us come to Ben through jazz; however this music is [mostly] not jazz. It is very composed, and one hates to make demeaning generalizations, but I hear Bela Bartok here just as much as, say, Pat Metheny. I think Ben is one of our most talented guitarists now. Very rewarding for the patient.