Pino Palladino & Blake Mills

Notes With Attachments NEW DEAL/IMPULSE!. CD/DL/LP

Who bassist and Dylan guitarist join up for amniotic funk jams.

Ever since his fretless bass line opened Paul Young’s Wherever I Lay My Hat in 1983, Pino Palladino has been first call bassist to the rock and soul elite. His first long-player with headline billing, though, finds him making limber, spacey music, pitched somewhere between jazz, funk and ambience, in the company of an innovative new class of sessioners. Chief among them is Blake Mills, whose 2020 recorded output included an Elliott Smith-ish solo album

(Mutable Set) and shifts on Bob

Dylan’s Rough And Rowdy

Ways. But it’s a testament to their discretion that the spotlight on these eight instrumentals is shared with woozy sax player Sam Gendel and drummer Chris Dave, among others. Conventional solos are strictly verboten; much happily recalls one of Palladino’s old co-writes with D’Angelo, Sugah Daddy. Fretless fans, meanwhile, are directed to Man From Molise, for an update on Palladino’s foundational plangency.