Valley Tangents is an album of tiny experiences – watching a bird fluttering aimlessly through a park, hearing a neighbor struggle at his piano on a summer afternoon, the secret absurdity of minor league baseball. It’s a few frames of film from everyday life taken out of context, simple moments given their due thought, words turned into images through the improv chops of a couple of smart, talented musicians. Simply put, it’s a jazz record, and a great one too, six tracks hip as a smoky nightclub, each driven by tasty piano and colored with rich textures.
Coopersburg duo Lea Cho and Russ Waterhouse have worked as an instrumental outfit for the better half of a decade, forming a bond whose tightness is evident in the craftsmanship of Valley Tangents. Fitting of the moniker Blues Control, the group simultaneously has the ability to take its mood pieces wherever it wants them to go, but the restraint to keep various gears working smoothly together. Despite the apparent free-form nature of the album, at no point does it feel as if Blues Control are goofing off or “noodling.” On “Iron Pigs,” the most immediately noteworthy track on the record, the duo mixes video game synths with a brash, synthetic horn hook. Held together by a simple groove and steady bass, the juxtaposition is intriguing – two broken ideas fused together to form something compelling. This is Valley Tangents all over. It’s not afraid of dissonance (as it thrillingly announces in the wonky introduction of “Love’s a Rondo”), but it’s also never obtuse. In orchestrating everyday images like “Walking Robin,” “Opium Den,” and “Open Air,” Blues Control allow for asymmetry and hiccups, yet manage to make these imperfections part of a more cohesive whole. In “Walking Robin,” the tempo never settles, suggesting a bird hopping about without direction, but the solidity of the melodic instruments gives the track order.
Valley Tangents is about these little contradictions of life. It’s about organization in randomness, finding meaning in that which doesn’t have to make sense. It makes us pay attention to that which we’d normally ignore, and it does all of this without uttering a single word. A sincerely impressive meditation on the world we live in, Valley Tangents is a humble reminder that there is much to appreciate in a world we take for granted.
Blues Control’s album is available today via Drag City. – Adam Downer