Postby T. Berry Shuffle » 16 Nov 2006, 16:45
Great writing Mr. Bodine. It's great to see somebody here approach these albums with a direct and passionate eye for description. Hopefully your efforts will certainly make these albums more accessible to interested listeners. There's so much of value to these records. I have found that the prominent electric format can actually open them to a whole new audience more easily than tentative listeners would initially expect.
I have never had anyone refuse the appeal of In a Silent Way for instance. It is an instant mood generator, one of those rare records that seem impossible to stop once they have started. It just takes the listener away. It's truly lovely.
The Miles album from this period that blew my mind more thoroughly than any other was Pangaea. I had listened to many of his electric records before I happened upon a used copy of this album. I bought it without much knowledge of it. I certainly wasn’t prepared for what it held in any case.
The music is absolutely forceful and relentless, athletic and not at all sloppy. It’s dynamic and explosive but not bombastic. It’s like seeing a welterweight fighter wind in, tighten up and unleash a staggeringly lethal assortment of well placed and concussive punches while seemingly levitating on slinky spring legs. Or much like watching an invisible storm wind pull apart a massive oak tree strewing limbs, twigs and leaves in a uniform ring around the devastated, bone-white remnants of it’s core, it’s a thunderous force of energy that just doesn’t let up. Pangaea is a perfectly mutated supersonic funk bomb designed to rearrange the DNA of music, not just jazz music, not just rock music, all music. It's a knock you upside the head dose of "shut the fuck up and listen bitch!"
Godwana as heavy as it is on side two almost sounds limp and week against Zimbabwe’s ruthlessly pulverizing side one. It’s hard to find a band with this much seamless intuitive ability to predict the direct of each member while simultaneously creating this much sound. It's a must listen for anyone interested in Miles' music from this period. I'm still in awe of it.
You read that in a book, didn't you?!