ProgressoR - Detailed Reviews - Absolute Zero (USA) - 1990

Absolute Zero (USA) - 1990 - "A Live in the Basement"
(19 min, "Absolute Zero")

This two song Mini CD (Single) was recorded live (yeah, in the Basement - underground!) on a 2-track deck with no mixing or overdubbing. A little about the musicians (current line-up).

Aislinn Quinn - keyboards / vocals /flute (a unique female player)
(Attended California Institute of the Arts. Graduated with a Master in Theory and Composition. Multimedia and World Music performance experience.)

Enrique Jardinez - bass guitar
(Attended Conservatory at Brooklyn College. Graduated with a Master degree in Music Composition. Multiple Band, Ensemble, and recording experiences.)

Pip Pyle - drums & percussion
(Drummer for Gong, Hatfiend & North, National Health, Delivery, and Cahoots. Has recently released CD entitled "7 Years Inch" on UK"s "Voiceprint" label.)

Note: on the "A Live in the Basement" album the drummer is Paul Roger.

Paradigms begins with the powerful virtuostic drumming, a unique bass lines and gentle passages by flute. A bit later this very complex composition develops with the same incredible work of rhythm-section and keyboards. Incredibly outstanding, mind-blowing and unically original vocal theme begins already after the 1 minute of playing. Although, vocal sounds here almost constantly, its combintaion with very diverse and different (in the united harmony conception, though!) themes, solos and improvisations from each instrument (except for flute, which is sounds just sometimes) give to this music simply uneartly feeling. After the short interplays between flute, bass and keyboards - in the accompaniment of fantastically great drumming - vocalist begins demonstrate she"s unique feeling of this very strange yet truly revolutionary music. Next move shows highly heavy work (fuzz-bass riffs / powerful yet diverse drumming) of rhythm-section, supported by the light synthsizer"s flashes.

An I to an Eye opens with the simultaneous yet incredibly different riffs and chords by the fantastic fuzz-bass, very varied, sometimes really mind-blowing drumming and some synthesizer passages. Next move contains absolutely diverse singing by Aislinn Quinn, and powerful wind-instruments, sound of those creates by the keyboardist herself in her modern synthesizer arsenal with lots of samples, which Quinn use incredibly diverse. Trombone-like sounds work together with nice synthesizer passages into the the accompaniment of the same incredible work of rhythm-section, whose quite heavy fantastic improvisations, such an original yet incomrehensible talk between both these instruments, add to this fantasy the feelings of the endlessness of music - the most positive energy in the world.

Summary. Yes, these incredible Masters-Musicians have been to record this short yet truly revolutionary album - even if just Live, even if just in the Basement, even if recorded just on 2-track deck with no mixing or overdubs. This is very important document in the history of Rock Music, without which we would never have one of the most innovative and original Progressive Rock albums. And it is an absolute fact for this decade already - "A Live in the Basement" is not just undoubtedly "A True Classic for the Future" - it is a real contemporary Classics, and already for many years. Very short yet totally unique work, "A Live in the Basement", is the album, which like a fireball or UFO, still remains one of the invaluable albums in the History of Rock. The only Mini CD, which contains not just really revolutionary music, but also compositinally consists of very diverse musical material, the quantity of those is more than quite enough to create any "usual" work of the Progressive Rock.

VM. December 27, 1999