Esoteric Antenna 2021
Anomalia
Mapping method onto madness, American polymorph forms a new logic when the common sense is failing.
Jane Getter is a skin-changer, rather than trend-setter, when it comes to inhabit different perspectives, and though inhabiting any world other than her own doesn’t seem possible for this artiste, the abnormal becoming a new norm in recent times facilitated her gravitation towards reality. Hence the strange allure of “Anomalia”: the musician’s second offering in an ensemble environment, emerging six years after her debut and delivering on the peculiar promise of “On” without putting off even the least adventurous layman.
Switching between various personas, as well as between first- and third-person point of view, Getter plays with aural colors and sonic moods that her team wrap in progressive fusion – if only such a term could cover what Jane’s creating here… and sometimes destroying too. Whereas the eerie clang and insistent riff of “Kryptone” lend themselves to sci-fi-cinematic panorama – as she and Alex Skolnick weave intricate layers of guitar licks over Adam Holzman swelling ivories, while Stu Hamm and Chad Wackerman try to take it all out further left field – the piece’s radiance and resonance rage and gel into an dynamically impressive instrumental edifice. Still, “Dissembler” and “Disappear” drive the entire experience in less unhinged, hypnotic, manner – the former assaulting hypocrisy via organ-ironed passages and adding Vernon Reid’s six-string filigree to the slo-mo fray which Randy McStine has given a voice to, and the latter am exquisitely frozen, serrated serenade – to outline the absence of something very dear. This is why the repetitive ripple behind “Still Here” will logically question the reason for our existence before unfurling a solemn electric expanse and allowing “Answers” to search for wisdom in the crossfire of pastoral folk sensibilities and artsy harmonic arrays, the most arresting mélange the ensemble arrange on the record.
So “Queen Of Spies” would need no verbiage to construct heavy, dramatic grandiosity and “Lessons Learned” may hide Ms Getter’s real feelings under a pile of effects, reflecting the confusion her listener can be gripped by, but she doesn’t mince words here and her lyrics combine regret and encouragement, until Jane’s vocals are cleansed with acoustic strum to let in glimpse of hope and usher in piano-washed slivers of hard rock. Yet it’s the delicate glimmer of “Alien Refugee” that oozes gloomy, albeit warm, sympathy and the finale “Safe House” that softens the album’s overall blow to reveal the artist’s ultimate humanity at the heart of her music – a triumph of normalcy in the time of cholera.
*****
