We could easily listen to this all day long. An epic, suave groove, it's a relaxing piece with warm electric keys, laconic guitar and languorous horns. Final track "Snakehips' Dream" stretches cooly out over 15 minutes to round out a spellbinding album. A track which truly sounds scintillating, featuring sax solos, fantastic propulsive interplay from all the group around the halfway stage before Marshall gets his chance to really shine in closing out with a polyrhythmic drum solo. The breezy soul of "Torso" feels like a breath of fresh air, skipping along in the uptempo style with guitar, horns, drums and bass. Regardless, it represents a great showcase for each virtuoso performer. Wonky jazz with no apparent structure or melodic bones. The dark, angular "Spirit Level" is a real highlight, by turns harmonic and beautiful then dissonant and wayward. Wah wah guitar, drums and funky percussion then take over before the horns ride us out over frenetic beats. The melancholic "Bedrock Deadlock" features the brooding majesty of Jenkins' oboe and Clyne's mournful, skittering double bass. How the brass refrains have eluded samplers is beyond us. An elegant onslaught of horns, courtesy of guests Kenny Wheeler and Harry Beckett, ride a solid groove for the duration. It gives way to the bright, funky feel-good jazz of "Changing Times". The haunting synth-and-bass soundscape "Elements I and II" opens the album in dramatic, experimental fashion. It's more of a jazz record loosely based on a rock foundation rather than jazz fusion jamming. Carr himself had almost full control of the writing and it does feel very different to the previous albums. Solar Plexus features the same lineup as Elastic Rock and We'll Talk About It Later, but they're augmented by six guests, three of which play brass. (The title is a reference to the famous dancer 'Snakehips' Johnson)." CHANGING TIME and SPIRIT LEVEL explore the first theme and BEDROCK DEADLOCK and TORSO explore the second one. SNAKEHIPS DREAM tries to fuse both themes. The first theme is angular and has a slow, crab-like movement: the second theme is direct, simple and diatonic. It is based on two short themes which are stated at the beginning (Elements I & I1). We'll let Ian describe this one: "I wrote Solar Plexus' last year with the help of an Arts Council grant. To steal a line from a review of our re-issue of Roots, when it comes to anything Nucleus “it’s basically already hip-hop”. This constant evolution and revolution was all part of the continuous musical exploration and discovery that took jazz to new levels. Under bandleader Carr, Nucleus existed as a fluid line-up of inventive, skilled musicians. Regarding music as a continuous process, Nucleus refused to “recognise rigid boundaries” and worked on delivering what they saw as a “total musical experience”. ![]() In late 1969, following the demise of the Rendell-Carr quintet, and tiring of British jazz, Carr assembled the legendary Nucleus. He was a true pioneer and saw the potential in fusing the worlds of jazz with rock, just as Miles Davis and The Tony Williams Lifetime did in the US. Genius trumpeter and visionary composer Ian Carr was one of the most respected British musicians of his era. ![]() This Be With re-issue, re-mastered from the original analogue tapes, shows off just why this deserves to be back in press. Inevitably, original copies are now very tricky to score and, like all the Nucleus records, it’s aged ridiculously well. What a record! The outstanding Solar Plexus, the much-loved third album from Ian Carr and Nucleus, was first released on Vertigo in 1971.
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