[This is the album that I would have posted on February 1, had I not had the Great Laptop Failure of 2016.]
I believe I’ve only shared one album by Andrey Avkhimovich previously, My Own Album With Blackjack and Hookers, and coming back around to his first album today, and also dipping into some of his most recent work, I guess I’m not surprised.
Avkhimovich is good, he’s very, very good. But his musical sense is something I can only describe as combative, to my ear. Listening to his work, it very often feels like a wrestling match between musician and listener. Sometimes playful, but with something stronger behind it, more serious.
Like some of the more outré jazz that I share, it’s not just “sit back and relax” music. It can set you on edge, or bring up conflicting feelings without resolving them one way or the other.
None of this, I wish to make clear, is a criticism. As I say, he is very, very good. His music is professional grade, and only repetitive with intent and purpose, never once feeling like he’s an amateur just noodling around with new software.
But smooth and easy listening his work is not. It is challenging.
And sometimes I very much like to be challenged while writing and trying to concentrate on other things. Not always, but regularly.
If you do, too, give this album a try.
You can also get it, in all those formats and others besides, from Avkhimovich’s BandCamp page, and send some well-deserved money his way into the bargain.
The Sound Theory by Andrey Avkhimovich is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Doing Slapstick in the Kingdom of the Blind 