Reviews of Eyes in the Back of My Head (2008)
"Over the ten years Cosmologic has existed, they've learned not only how
to play high level original contemporary improvised music, but have attained
a unique style few stable or working groups have attained.... The fearless
attitude that this group exhibits in taking chances, yet remaining quite
listenable, is a rare thing. Another aspect of Cosmologic is that they can
play to younger audiences in the midst of discovery, while also appealing
to the 50s-and-older set that craves both the "new wave" of the ‘60s and
an updated non-electronic sound. Bravo to Cosmologic for making no compromises,
playing some truly fascinating upper echelon progressive jazz music."
-
Michael Nastos, All Music Guide. Read
the review...
"Free jazz upstarts from San Diego strike a balance between complex form and forceful abandon on their fourth outing.... Thoughtful writing and bold instincts make this a compelling listen."
-
Bill Milkowski, Jazz Times. Read
the review...
"While the group's strongest antecedents are in free jazz, the composerly
emphasis gives it a distinctive character, the pieces often favoring punchy
ensembles and contrasting them with unusual moods and textures, including
extended techniques.... The band's handling of these compositions is anything
but static, making use of turbulent collective improvisations and intensive
free blowing in order to both explore and break through the primary moods.
It's well-designed and well-executed music that opens in a variety of directions."
- Stuart Broomer, Signal To Noise.
"In today's world of all-star studio sessions and endless collaborative
side-projects, longstanding working bands are growing increasingly uncommon.
Cosmologic is a splendid example of such a rarefied entity.... Eyes In
The Back Of My Head is a richly rewarding statement from a group whose
time for greater exposure is long overdue. Accessible yet forward thinking,
this is contemporary West Coast jazz at its most heartfelt and adventurous."
- Troy
Collins, All About Jazz. Read
the review...
"They have been together for almost 10 years... That experience together
shows in the extra-fine post-Bop they play so well. These are all originals...
and there are many fine duets and ensemble passages here, as Cosmologic seems
to be about the group and not the soloists. This doesn't mean there aren't
strong solos.... [but] it is their great group sound and cohesiveness that
recommends Cosmologic."
- Phillip McNally, Cadence.
"[Cosmologic's] perspicacity and ability to capture the unusual gives their
music a rather exceptional focus.... Cosmologic does not let the written
note be the guiding light. Their sense of juxtaposition dictates the course.
Flow and chaos are consonants in constant flight that are navigated by surprise,
and the band documents this consummately, making Eyes In The Back Of
My Head a stirring listening experience.""
- Jerry
D'Souza, All About Jazz. Read
the review...
"Does Cosmologic qualify as an avant-garde jazz ensemble? Not if you
regard the genre as a refuge for self-indulgent musicians with a shared taste
for cacophony. For all the improvised and willfully discordant music this
10-year old West Coast quartet is capable of producing, and reveling in,
Cosmologic produces a sound so rich in mood-shifting maneuvers and sophisticated
interplay that it defies labeling. Eyes in the Back
of My Head, the
band's latest offering, is intriguing enough to keep you guessing from start
to finish.... In the end, the album, composed entirely of original music,
says as much about Cosmologic's discipline and cohesiveness as it does about
its freewheeling spirit."
- Mike Joyce, Washington Post . Read
the review...
"Clearly, time spent in a regularly working unit—rare these days—has served
the writing and the playing of Cosmologic and its members very well."
- Clifford
Allen, All About Jazz. Read
the review...
"Extra Special Good: This jazz foursome are still together after more than
a decade in a town that kind of ignores them, even though they consistently
make some of the most vital and exciting music around. Abundant skills, ethereal
communication, wild flights of chaos and sustained moments of fleeting beauty
comprise this work of art that takes cues from the approach most often known
as free jazz."
- D.A. Kolodenko, CityBeat San Diego. Read
the review...
"The musicians mold a singular mindset, which is a component that radiates
throughout this starkly inventive and superfine progressive-jazz statement.
As a tight-knit and largely expressive unit, they come at you from all angles.
It’s a highly-disciplined group, where they also specialize in loose-groove
like expansions. Sparked by youthful vigor and a continual reengineering
methodology, they fuse unorthodox time signatures with spirited soloing jaunts
into the grand schema.... No doubt, this is a band for the new age of jazz.
Their charismatic and rather impudent mode of delivery bears the mark of
distinction. (Heartily recommended!)"
- Glenn Astarita, JazzReview.com. Read
the review...
"Over the past decade, street-savvy, hard-hitting urban quartet Cosmologic has built it's high-impact, low-comfort-zone approach to groupwork that recalls Anthony Braxton's small-band intelligence and The Fringe's raw energy. The California-based band enjoys bumypy textures, aggressive stances, loose-wheeled (if not off-track) soloing and equal voices for horn and rhythm players..."
- Fred Bouchard, All About Jazz New York. Read
the review...
There are groups that, despite playing materials whose roots are firmly planted in the grounds of definite genres, defy an easy tagging due to a multiplicity of motives.... Cosmologic... is precisely one of those units. [Eyes In The Back of My Head] positively stands on a jazz pedestal yet the junctures in which they don’t sound like that are countless, the exploitation of a vastly proficient improvisational sagacity shifting the solidity of the interplay more towards a coordinated kind of self-government than run-of-the-mill structures, with allowances to vamp-based vigorous drive.... A methodologically prominent record, indubitably rewarding for educated ears."
- Massimo Ricci, Touching Extremes (blog). Read
the review...
"Eyes in the Back of My Head is a densely rich album that
focuses on the idea of exuberance from its opening.... The compositions of Cosmologic exhibit a rare maturity that re-gild the emblem of a modern jazz that, each day, searches to redefine itself."
- Guts Of Darkness (France). Read
the review...
"The prestigious label Cuneiform could hopefully bring to Cosmologic, with this new release, much deserved greater noteriety for the San Diego-based quartet, which has succeeded in producing better interpretations of free-jazz in a new and and updated way, filled with new and innovative meanings. The point of departure is always the composition, with well defined themes that provide a strong foundation for discipline and coherent improvisations that work well within the songs' architecture.."
-
Enrico Ramunni, Rockerilla magazine (Italy).
"Omdat de bezetting al die jaren onveranderd is gebleven, hebben de vier
bandleden een manier van samen spelen kunnen uitdiepen die zeldzaam empatisch
is. Cosmologic geeft bovendien een fris vervolg aan de rijke traditie van
vrij geïmproviseerde muziek.... Intelligente muziek met schwung en humor
gebracht.....
-
Mischa Andriessen, Jazzeno (Netherlands). Read
the review...
"In conclusione, uno di quei cento ottimi gruppi che dimonstrano quanto il jazz sia ancora lontano dall morte, e che bisognerebbe sentire piu spesso anche dal vivo invece di cascare continuamente sui 'soliti noti.'"
- Sessa, MusicaJazz (Italy).
"Il quartetto californiano Cosmologic, capitanato dal tenorsassofonista Jason Robinson (con
Michael Dessen al trombone, Scott Walton al basso e Nathan Hubbard alla batteria),
vanta un’attività decennale e giunge con ‘Eyes In The Back Of My Head’ al suo
quarto saggio discografico. E ci arriva bene, come meglio non si potrebbe. Nell’ipertrofica
produzione musicale jazzistica d’oggi, infatti, i dischi veramente buoni continuano ad essere non moltissimi, e ‘Eyes’, con le sue otto tracce, è indubbiamente uno di questi. Non è un lavoro ostico, al contrario è un disco di free sostanzialmente pacato ed accessibile
anche ai non adepti, con riff riconoscibili e cantabili (molto belli i fraseggi e gli unisoni dei fiati), il sostegno creativo della sezione ritmica ed assoli ben calibrati nei quali il fuoco è sapientemente dosato nella cangiante intensità dell’architettura sonora."
- Paolo Cruciani, Kathodik (Italy).Read
the review...
Reviews of III (2005)
Cosmologic music
is initiated by individual members and then doggedly worked and reworked
until its internal logics are available for genuinely creative improvisation....
More than impressive.
- Brian Morton, The
Wire
The third and newest album by this talent-rich San Diego quartet is a gem
of crisp ensemble-playing and finely calibrated improvisations...
-
George Varga, San Diego Union Tribune. Read the review...
III doesn’t so much stand as a document of the history of jazz
as a brochure for the infinite varieties of modern improvisation.... Incredibly
rewarding... Sure, it takes a little work but, for every cerebral exercise
the listener is required to work through, there’s a funky-as-all-hell payoff.
-
Daniel Spicer, One Final Note. Read the review...
Un disque solide qui participe à revélér
quelques-uns des meilleurs instrumentalistes de la côte ouest
américaine.
(A solid disc [III] that reveals some of the best
West Coast instrumentalists.)
- JazzoSphere
Reviews of live performances
... The most exhilarating band performance of the entire five days [of the
Guelph Jazz Festival]... At times showing a deep fascination with Dave Holland's
rhythmic structures and counterpoint improvisations, at times going far further
outside, suspending harmony and rhythm entirely, Cosmologic covered a wide
range, from intense grooves to raspy textures.... Cosmologic, it seems safe
to predict, has wider attention awaiting it in the future.
-
Johannes Völz, Musicworks. Read
the review...
Cosmologic made an impact with their hard hitting attack....Original compositions
became the gateway for explosive interpretations that kept the pot boiling
at intense heat throughout the set.
-
Frank Rubolino, Cadence
Cosmologic raised the bar for strength early in the [Guelph Jazz] festival.
- Exclaim!, Nilan Perera
Totalmente lleno se registro el recinto para ver a los musicos,
quienes actuaron bajo un ambiente tranquilo y placentero repleto de bohemia
que contrasto con su jazz vanguardista lleno de energia...
- El Mexicano
Zelden heb ik een ad-hoc formatie zo beheerst en geconcentreerd horen en
zien spelen. Uit een schijnbaar minimaal gegeven werden suiteachtige muziekstukken
gecreëerd. Prachtig opgebouwd met soloruimtes voor eenieder en - in de collectieven
- een alert luisteren en reageren op elkaar.
- Jazz En Meer, Jacques Los
Press for earlier releases
Intense
peaks of clamorous excitement... Near-spiritual communication... The
group dynamics of Cosmologic are in full effect, and the music is commanding.
As a unit, these four musicians click.
- Cadence
Its
a charge when a record immediately makes me say, "Oh yeah," and
then maintains the level... Cosmologic embodies every value that hooked
me on improvised music....
- Los Angeles
Weekly
With
motivated and talented young musicians of this calibre, there's no
doubt that jazz can be a creative force. Long gone are the days when
things West Coast were considered pallid in relation to anything East
Coast, and for any of the doubters out there, here's the proof positive.
-
Coda
Wildly
spontaneous... Fascinating...
- Los Angeles
Times
Forget commercial labeling, this
is real contemporary jazz.
- Jazz Weekly
Forget
what you think you know about San Diegan music.... these guys wail,
play taut ensemble charts, float freely, and generally give West Coast
post-free jazz a good name.
- Santa Barbara
Independent
Just
plain good music...having sizable stylistic debts to post-bop and free
jazz masters, but sending out a force of expression which end up in
places that transcend genre.
- San Diego New
Music Newsletter