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National Music Reviews
Dale Cooper Quartet & the Dictaphones
Quatorze Pièces de Menace
Denovali
Street: 09.24
Dale Cooper Quartet = Tristeza + Swans + late-era Aidan Baker
Quatorze Pièces de Menace starts with near perfect treatise explaining a term like “dark jazz” to the masses. This 20-plus minute opus tracks a slow-build progression from dark ambience to slow industrial clang, to Birth of the Cool–era Miles Davis cool jazz, to swells of post-rock guitars and swathes of noise. “Brosme En Dos-Vert” is a huge track, and honestly, the album could stop there. Cooper does, however, have a few more things to say concerning the state of dark jazz. Quatorze features a few choice guest vocal spots by Alicia Merz (Birds of Passage) and Gaëlle Kerrien who add a certain sense of contemplative seriousness to an already deadly serious album. Otherwise, the album is composed of slow-burn numbers centered around the interplay of drum and upright bass with elements of cool and free jazz woven throughout the sprawling and cavernous maw of the album. –Ryan Hall
Quatorze Pièces de Menace
Denovali
Street: 09.24
Dale Cooper Quartet = Tristeza + Swans + late-era Aidan Baker
Quatorze Pièces de Menace starts with near perfect treatise explaining a term like “dark jazz” to the masses. This 20-plus minute opus tracks a slow-build progression from dark ambience to slow industrial clang, to Birth of the Cool–era Miles Davis cool jazz, to swells of post-rock guitars and swathes of noise. “Brosme En Dos-Vert” is a huge track, and honestly, the album could stop there. Cooper does, however, have a few more things to say concerning the state of dark jazz. Quatorze features a few choice guest vocal spots by Alicia Merz (Birds of Passage) and Gaëlle Kerrien who add a certain sense of contemplative seriousness to an already deadly serious album. Otherwise, the album is composed of slow-burn numbers centered around the interplay of drum and upright bass with elements of cool and free jazz woven throughout the sprawling and cavernous maw of the album. –Ryan Hall