Making an album is tough. Just ask Guns N’ Roses, or The Avalanches, or The Avalanches again in 31 years when their third album comes out. Overthink things too much, and you could start sliding down a slippery slope, second-guessing every decision until suddenly it’s years later, and all you’ve got is a half-baked album and health problems from eating too much Half Baked. Really, it’s best to keep it simple, play what comes to you, and go from there. And hey, if what comes to you are solo compositions that bend expectations of the kinds of sounds a human should be able to produce from the alto saxophone, then go for it!
That’s what Andrew Bernstein did anyway, for An Exploded View of Time, his first full-length LP. Recorded over the course of a single day, Bernstein’s saxophone playing prowess is on full display. Without the aid of looping or delay — save for one track that uses a custom resonance software developed by Bernstein in the music coding language Pure Data — Bernstein blows and blows (and then blows for like way more than you’d think humanly possible) on his instrument of choice, crafting songs that manage to be minimalist, yet also so complex they sound like they could only have been created by some sort of machine. Like a cool, saxophone-playing A.I. whose only data sources are Terry Riley albums and seminars about math formulas.
Seriously, Bernstein’s finger work and breath control are so impressive, they could respectively put Steve Vai and Guybrush Threepwood to shame. Time stretches out into forever as Bernstein shifts moods and techniques, often within the same song, juxtaposing hypnotic runs through scales alongside squalls of pure noise with ease. The songs seem as though they could go in literally any direction, yet the one they end up going feels like the correct one to take.
You’re just going to have to hear it for yourself; listen to Bernstein run laps around the saxophone-playing A.I. community on the song “Broken Arc,” down below. An Exploded View of Time is out September 28 via Hausu Mountain, and can be pre-ordered here.
An Exploded View of Time tracklisting:
01. Vesica Piscis
02. Boogie Woogie Phase
03. Deus Ex Machina
04. Pressure Wave Meditations I - XXIII
05. Broken Arc
06. Dust
07. Round Up
More about: Andrew Bernstein
