Product Description

Continuing in the spirit of the Blue Series, Optometry seamlessly brings together one of the masters of DJ culture
with real musicians and the results are staggering. Joining Spooky are Matthew Shipp, William Parker, Joe McPhee, Guillermo E. Brown, and additional
guest artists. These "all stars" of the Blue Series provide the inspiration to bring this concept to a new plateau.

Track Listing

1. Ibid, desmarches, ibid
2. Ractive Switching Strategies For The Control Of Uninhibited Air
3. Variation Cybernetique: Rhythmic Pataphysic (Part 1)
4. Asphalt (Tome II)
5. Optometry
6. Sequentia Absentia (Dialectical Triangulation I)
7. Rosemary
8. Dementia Absentia (Dialectical Triangulation II)
9. Parachutes
10. Absentia Absentia (Dialectical Triangulation III)
11. Variation Cybernetique: Rhythmic Pataphysic (Part II)
12. Periphique
13. It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, World

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #117425 in Music
• Released on: 2002-08-27
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .20 pounds

Amazon.com
Like an angry thunderstorm dissipating into still winds and humid temperatures, Optometry opens like gangbusters with free jazz and DJ squabble, and then slowly spirals into more meditative moods. Manning laptop, kalimba, and turntable, New York DJ-theorist DJ Spooky stretches and shifts the free jazz ramblings of the Matthew Shipp quartet like a sea captain navigating a treacherous ocean. Spooky is as much an improviser as Shipp and crew, adding atmospheric samples, gentle melodies, and laptop mayhem at will. Beat poetry by Carl Hancock Rux adds hip-hop edge, and Spooky still opts for pretentious song titles ("Reactive Switching Strategies for the Control of Uninhabited Air"), but you definitely get the feeling that something fresh is happening here. Optometry sure ain't dance music, and it's too funky for free jazz purists, but it's just right for DJ Spooky's subliminal mind music. --Ken Micallef

Review
First hearing of this album stirred memories of George Russell's Electronic Sonata For Souls Loved By Nature (1969): Both feature an acoustic jazz group, piano-driven, set within an electronic context. Here the pianist is Matthew Shipp and instead of Russell's tape composition, DJ Spooky supplies laptop, turntables, treatments, bass, etc. Optometry comes with liner notes and the track titles are... challenging.


The opening "Ibid, desmarches, ibid" delivers traffic sounds out of which a snare-heavy, rolling, tripping rhythm appears, a double bass starts to play a catchy figure, piano chords drive things along. There's an intense, muscular quality to Shipp's playing, a McCoy Tyner-like emphasis.


"Reactive Switching Strategies for the Control of Uninhabited Air" has the bass up in the mix, there's a circular piano figure and clickety percussion; things are accessible, near-catchy; laptop loops may be in play. Again those heavy, dramatic chords with the bass figures pushing patterns through.


In "Variation Cybernetique: Rhythmic Pataphysic (part I)" repeated piano clusters played fast almost recall Philip Glass, reverberating off each eardrum, long violin notes, glass-like percussion, gong. Captivating, beautiful stuff. "Periphique" is a beautiful piece of work: the percussion is all brushes and ride cymbal, there's bowed double bass and Joe McPhee plays trumpet. This penultimate track starts with a feeling of aimlessness, of wandering in a wide-open, darkened landscape where the sky is all too big and we're all too small.


With "It's a mad, mad, mad world", the final track, a confused certainty returns; there are a couple of jokey/ironic vocal samples and some more straightahead playing. This initially surprised me by appearing to belie the music that had gone before it, to represent an unexpected loss of confidence. On further thought it's perhaps understandable in light of "Periphique"s sense of loss/lostness.


All in all, Optometry is a big, serious-sounding piece of work. The overall impression of this reviewer is of an earnest, driven endeavour which finds itself in a place it didn't expect to be. Although Optometry sounds like an essay in possibilities, a sonic prototype which is unlikely to go into production, it bears repeated listening and throws many sonic jewels before our ears.
--BBC Music

Review
Thirsty Ear is leading the way in the cross-pollination between electronic music production and jazz. Their Blue Series seems to have set its goal no lower than to move jazz forward into the 21st Century, and in creating fresh and challenging settings for improvisation and the music's sonic palate, they're succeeding. In 2001 they dropped Spring Heel Jack's dark and abstract Masses, which was a rewarding experiment in the merger of jazz improvisation and electronic textures. Earlier this year they released the excellent Matthew Shipp disc Nu Bop, which shared the general working method of Masses but was more interested in rhythmic tension and the age-old pursuit of getting down. Now DJ Spooky has weighed in with Optometry, a sprawling cityscape of an album that absorbs both the ambient/abstract and the booty-shake, and fuses them with a staggering technique and ambition. --Popmatters

Customer Reviews

More great DJ Spooky:
This is my third DJ Spooky CD (File Under Futurism, Modern Mantra, and Optometry) and I like it a lot!

File Under Futurism was garbage except for a few songs. Modern Mantra is absolutely spectacular, and I have listened to it over 20 (yes, twenty) times in that last week! This CD fits between the two. Some of the songs are great, some are just OK. The first few tracks are kinda toned down acid jazz, but after those are over, the CD starts to pick up. Some of the songs are a little too slow, but it all works together in the end. Some rap, some techno, some real imagination on the behalf of Paul D. Miller (DJ Spooky.) I would not recommend this as a first DJ Spooky CD (that job goes to Modern Mantra in IMO), but if you like DJ Spooky, this is definitely a must have!

Deserves a genre of its own (and another star)
This is such a successful fusion of jazz, acid jazz, trip-hop, and illbient that the CD deserves a genre of its own.

The work here is such a thick soup of sound that it takes numerous repeats to savor all of the flavor. Yet, it all meshes into such a tight seamless whole that its hard to imagine that any element was ever intended to be part of anything but these finished pieces. DJ Spooky moves tracks effortlessly from free jazz piano figure intros into pulsing thick funky grooves, loose and atmospheric like his best trip-hop underneath, smoky, moody and grooving like a hot jazz club on top.

"Asphalt (Tome II)" with its beat poet throw-down, and "Optometry" with its late 70s jazz clavinet are raw, burning, funking masterpieces. Ordinarily, a track like "Asphalt" with its spoken word center piece wouldn't get many repeat listens from me, but the vocal performance is as brilliant and exciting as any of the playing or mixing supporting it. After weeks of repeat listens, I'm still not burned out on this.

As other reviewers have warned, DJ Spooky is really stretching himself on this one. It's hard to believe this is the same artist who produced "Songs of a Dead Dreamer" or "Riddim Warfare" or "The Quick and the Dead." But what a successful stretch! Paul D. Miller is one of the sharpest most creative minds in current music, and this is some of his best work. Too bad this CD will never get the attention it truly deserves.

Powerful, engaging, contemporary music...
This great CD makes you sit up and listen! I am a jazz fan of long standing, preferring Miles, Trane, Monk, Rollins, etc..but I like to keep my ears open for new interpretations. This is a fascinating blend of great drum licks, keyboard and reed improvs, combined with beautiful, spacy, delicate mood pieces. Even the rap tunes, and I have not been much of a rap fan (until now) are extraordinary! I can hear Miles saying "yeah, man!!" Go buy it!