Emotions Run Dry

Chronique

Jake Ferguson's Emotions Run Dry -- featuring longtime musical partner and Heliocentrics co-founder Malcolm Catto -- is the second release from the Madlib Invazion Library Series, co-founded by the visionary producer and Now-Again label founder Egon Alapatt. Their goal was to release 12 monthly albums between June 2023 and 2024, that would stand alone in an artist's catalog and provide a one-stop clearance shop for background music or use in film and television production and sampling, thus evoking the spirit of historic music library labels (KPM, Sonor, DeWolfe, etc.). Emotions Run Dry is the label's second release, sandwiched between JJ Whitefield's Ethio Meditations/Drama Al Dente, and J-Zone's Intoxicated Skull. Future titles will feature contributions from DJ Muggs, Karriem Riggins, Mario Luciano, and others. Though he is the Heliocentrics' bassist, Ferguson is an intensely capable multi-instrumentalist and producer. He founded and leads the Brkn Record and plays in the Soul Destroyers with Catto and Adrian Owusu. Totaling just over 40 minutes, these 11 tracks range across and often combine multiple genres, from post-punk and dub to country, contemporary jazz-funk, rock, and world fusion, offering startling ambient textures, trippy synths, tense, tropical, and nocturnal atmospheres, and more. The musical architecture and sequencing in these tracks allow them to be heard and absorbed separately, though in this context they contribute to a seamless sonic and stylistic mélange providing a cohesive and even compelling whole. Along the way, Ferguson pays homage to some of his musical heroes. Opener "Freestyling," with Catto, is a dubby instrumental paying homage to Public Image Ltd.'s classic Metal Box, specifically "Careering" and "Albatross." "21st Century Blues" weds an arid, spaghetti western melody to a cut-time country shuffle led by overdubbed harmonicas, percussion, and bass. "Well Well Well" (with Catto) nods to Miles Davis' early-'70s albums such as Jack Johnson and On the Corner. It contains cracking breakbeats and percussion, fuzzy, grooving wah-wah guitars, Rhodes piano, organ, analog synth, and a rumbling, swaggering, strutting bassline that holds the tune aloft. "String Fantasy" commences with summery, acoustic guitar framed by bass and jazzy beats that eventually transform into the main riff from the Stooges "Be Your Dog." "I Wonder" roughly jumbles blues, a hard rock shuffle, and a jazz vamp in a hypnotic cue. The title track, the set's longest, finds Ferguson creating a breezy yet cohesive musical narrative from surf guitars, loads of reverb and echo, and an intricate bassline that frames the drum patterns. More layered electric guitar and tastefully employed keyboards drive the riff. While "Salamander'' jaggedly stitches dub, post-punk, and spiritual jazz, closer "Dune" offers a tapestry of acoustic and electric guitar sounds guided by a spidery bassline, whispering cymbals, taut snares, and resonant hi-hat. It would make a perfect cue for a tense cinematic adventure sequence. Emotions Run Dry accomplishes two important things: First, it firmly establishes Ferguson as a thoughtful, commanding musician and producer; secondly, it does an excellent job of achieving the label's aesthetic goals.
© Thom Jurek /TiVo