RADIUS FUNK – Layers Of Meaning

Radius Funk 2019

RADIUS FUNK –
Layers Of Meaning

Exploring the variety of senses, Bay Area jazz-rockers perceive universal gravity of a feeling.

Going against the grain of grand expectations might be one of this group’s manifold fortes, and if such approach can lead to some inconsistencies in their albums’ flow, getting the listener confused is undoubtedly part of the San Franciscan trio’s game. While 2018’s "Ultraviolet Voodoo" found them gravitate towards song idiom without leaving instrumental framework, its follow-up sees the team return to freeform fusion that was their forte from the off. Still, as the EP’s title should suggest, the new shift didn’t affect the depth of the ensemble’s approach.

The difficulty of fathoming this profundity, as opposed to simply enjoying the drift, is apparent immediately, once the anxious twang of “Raindance” has resolved its surface tension in a sparse six-string caress and expanded its dynamic scope beyond the pale, thanks to flurries of notes applied to chthonic groove before coiling back into cinematic cocoon. But if “Twilight Dancer” seems to offer a bit of abstractness, the piece’s prog-minded balladry takes over the flow soon enough to let “Ponder” reveal the players’ proclivity for ruminative bliss. Only this cut’s soft ripples get wondrously tangled in “Elsewhere” and eventually lead to a funky field in “Alter Ego” – although there’s a pastoral air to the number, too.

So when “Miracle” marries jazz to pure pop, nothing feels more logical. And that’s quite an adventure in itself.

****1/3

July 6, 2021