SONAR WITH DAVID TORN

Tranceportation Volume 2

SZen-rock poetry in motion.

wiss band Sonar have spent several years carefully building momentum through several intense, visceral albums. The presence of American guitarist and producer David Torn, his third studio release with Sonar, brings a volatile and contrasting creative turbulence to the band’s metrical exactitude that’s irresistible.

Here, Torn’s slippery microtonality and washes of simmering atmospherics cast a glistening patina over four meticulous pieces. Riding alongside a metronomic pointillism occasionally reminiscent of 80s King Crimson, surging dialogues between Torn and various divisions of the band vie for attention, with note clusters and contrapuntal rhythms bouncing off each other.

The net effect is to create new tensions and structures, some fleeting and transient, others effortlessly consolidated into the form. What at first might appear as rigid is suddenly mutable and highly agile, prompting a sense that everything is forever in motion. It might seem odd that music this thoughtful and calculated can at the same time sound so liberated and fiery but Sonar and Torn fashion an organic sound that’s lyrical and mesmeric.