When guitarist
Julian Lage released
View with a Room in 2022, he was seeking the answer to a question: "Can you have lush orchestration combined with organic improvisation and the agility of a small ensemble?" He discovered clues in studying the electric guitar's history on recordings.
Lage felt the need for an additional musical voice and recruited guitar icon
Bill Frisell, who appeared with
Lage's rhythm section -- bassist
Jorge Roeder and drummer
Dave King -- on seven of the recording's ten pieces.
The Layers is a direct companion;
Lage considers it a "prequel," despite appearing afterward. The six tunes included here were cut during the recording sessions for
View with a Room, and like its predecessor, the music was produced by singer/songwriter
Margaret Glaspy and mixed by
Mark Goodell.
Set opener "Everything Helps" is a showcase for the ensemble at its best.
Lage's languid, summery melody is introduced by the guitars as
Roeder's vamp erects a tight, harmonic intersection with the guitarists and
King offers colorful fills and accents. The guitar interplay is sumptuous, lyrical, and not unlike the exchanges between
Frisell and
Greg Leisz on
Good Dog, Happy Man. "Double Southpaw," with
Lage on acoustic and
Roeder on bass guitar, is one of two duets. Its meditative melody weds classical, Americana, and post-bop.
Roeder's playing is in duet; it's not accompaniment. He offers chordal and single-string runs as the alternates between expansive chords and intricate fingerpicking. Its modal melody crisscrosses post-bop, Americana, and Andalusian folk music.
Lage sets the tone for "Missing Voices." Played by the quartet,
King's double-time brushwork, broken accents, and subtle pulse allow
Roeder to offer hypnotic phrasing as
Lage and
Frisell travel the space ways gently and mysteriously, swirling together intricately interlaced harmonics before they re-emerge melding jazz balladry and minor blues. "This World" is an acoustic duet from the guitarists. Unhurriedly, they stake out different spots on a harmonic plane and explore one another's playing with deep listening, generosity, and nearly spiritual melodic invention. The final two tracks, "Mantra" and the title cut, are both played by the quartet. The former uses a two-chord pattern from the instrument's lower register.
Roeder underscores it with deep single lines as
Frisell and
Lage take the opportunity to explore undefined terrain in waltz time. The closer is played acoustically by the guitarists and
Roeder. The back porch Americana offers the guitarists' labyrinthine flatpicking exchanges, circling one another as the expressionistic melody unfolds.
King shuffles his snare, hi-hat, and kick drum as
Roeder floats the changes for the guitarists to improvise on, separately and together. The music on
The Layers offers a run time of barely 25 minutes; further, it closely echoes its predecessor, making it unclear why
View with a Room wasn't released as a 16-track album. Ultimately, that doesn't matter, because fans will appreciate not having to wait a year or two for new music from
Lage -- especially with this quartet. ~ Thom Jurek