JOSH WERNER

Sure, the album is produced by Bill Laswell, another legendary bass player and it is released on his brand spanking new label. And Werner himself has impeccable playing references that include the likes of Lee "Scratch" Perry, Cibo Matto, James Brandon Lewis, Wu-Tang Clan, Marc Ribot, Ghostface Killah, Vybz Kartel, Sly and Robbie, Nels Cline, and Popcaan. But is that a reason enough to take a listen?

Maybe not, but, then, you certainly should. Because, to put it briefly, Werner delivers on his promise. He has come up with an ambient album where the bass dominates and you still don't have one weary moment. Part of it lies in the fact that Werner's playing capabilities are stretched here to include a number of instrument variations, like the sitar bass, seven-string, and fretless bass.

But the key lies in the fact that nowhere on Mode For Titan does Werner go into extensive bass soloing or trying to show-off his instrumental prowess by endless soloing. The key is in creating a certain mood, an ambient if you will stick to the genre title. All of it is helped by Laswell's intentionally understated production that just gives another touch to the atmosphere Werner creates.

Essentially, Mode For Titan could have potentially been a bass-dominated disaster, but actually turns into its promise - ambient bass music you can enjoy.

Ljubinko Zivkovic (courtesy of the Echoes and Dust website)

If you think of the bass guitar being used as a lead instrument, then the chances are that your mind conjures the sound of over the top solos and bombastic grooves. Essentially, most people who have fallen into such a category in the past have always tried to force four strings through a six-string prism and approached this most underrated of instruments as if they were wielding a regular guitar.

Traversal, which opens this intriguing album, immediately puts any such thoughts to rest. Instead, it reminds us of the tones and gentle majesty, the ambience and emotive sound which can be drawn from the instrument when it is in the right hands. As I said before when writing about this glorious introductory track, Josh Werner is the right pair of hands.

But it was always going to be fascinating to see how he could take such a sound and fill a whole album with such seductive tones. But fill an album he has and Mode For Titan is the result. There are times, such as on Danger Road and the title track itself, when the bass does become a focal point, weaving rhythms into melodies and melodies into soundscapes but even then it never dominates, allowing various arabesque and ambient washes, meandering electronica and additional sonic touches, soft textures and subtle layering to take equal billing.

Just as often, the bass acts more as sonic punctuation, such as on tracks like Free Matter, where it is less the bass pulses themselves but more often the atmospherics which swirls around in their wake which defines the sound.

It is interesting to note that Josh Werner is, as well as being a veteran composer and performer, an abstract painter (I believe that the album cover is his own work) and it is perhaps the same artistic approach and attitude which takes root in Mode For Titan. Often structureless, always exploratory, these instrumentals are more about mood and response, feeling and interpretation than the direct communication which is normally inherent in most songs.

Not only a great album but one which reminds us that music is made not by the instruments but by those who wield them and that, given the right person with the right outlook, almost anything can become a lead instrument and the mainstay of a whole album. Even the humble bass guitar.

Dave Franklin (courtesy of the Dancing About Architecture website)

Since our ears first relished the temptation of music it is the rhythmic character and manipulation of the bass which has so often been behind the initiation seed of attraction. Over the years bass led, guitar less propositions have further fuelled that appetite, the likes of MoRkObOt, Royal Blood, and Lightning Bolt especially compelling for us as they have pushed the envelope. So there was an instinctive draw towards the debut solo album from American bassist, painter and experimental dreamweaver Josh Werner. Whereas the trio mentioned craft unique incitements that twist the conventional aspects of metal and rock Werner shares the rich intimation and melodic beauty that the instrument can also bear and it makes for one of the year's most fascinating and inspiring encounters, Mode For Titan.

Werner is renowned and acclaimed for his work with the likes of Ghostface Killer, CocoRosie, Lee "Scratch" Perry, Cibo Matto, PopCaan, James Brandon Lewis, Matisyahu, Sly and Robbie, Wu Tang Clan and TV On The Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe and the individual craft he has brought to an eclectic list of styles. Mode For Titan sees New York based Werner present a collection of instrumentals which consume and inspire the imagination, each minimalistic in their bass only spun proposals though with a weave of gentle electronic nuances and fascination for company but thick in radiant elegance and atmospheric intimation. With a variety of basses embraced including the sitar bass, seven-string and fretless bass, and a kaleidoscope of styles and flavours woven together, the album proved a feast for the senses and passions from start to finish and with every listen enchantment has flourished.

Released via M.O.D. Reloaded, the label owned by legendary bassist/producer Bill Laswell who co-produced the album with Werner, Mode For Titan immediately seduced keen attention with opener Traversal. Its first breath is a warm embrace of the senses, a reassuring and suggestive caress lined with darker hues as basses reveal their grace and intimation, the track only expanding its rapture and secrets within a compelling journey.

The passage through The Crossing is just as captivating, it too hinting at darker shadows around cosmopolitan magnificence within its low key but thought enriching flight whilst Subversion celebrates its entanglement with the unexpected and defiant with a dub/ska flavoured stroll. From feet and hips to the imagination there was no resisting its flirtation and intimating lures, its temptation under the skin in quick time and only burrowing deeper.

The album's title track has a jazz funk nurtured breath to its shuffle, Werner skilfully making another bass pulsate and sing in the ears whilst weaving a dreamy and rather mercurial landscape to explore before Quiet Star with progressive rock scented hues teased and smooched with the senses and the following Arcane Path ventured down its melancholic yet again enchanting movement of emotive incitement. Each had the imagination conjuring once more, the shadows wrapping the third as poetic as the melodic sighs; Werner once more revealing and revelling in the versatility of the bass.

It is fair to say that keys do provide a potent essence in the adventures of Mode For Titan but only as additional colouring to the palette and craft of the bass as epitomised by Light Of Other Suns, a track seeded in electronic breezes but realised and infectiously seducing though Werner’s inventive pull on steel strings. The track is superb, one of many intensely favourite moments discovered and soon joined by the intrigue soaked, dub courting Danger Road and the following Free Matter with its soulful intimacy. The first of the pair teases and toys with thoughts whilst manipulating the body’s movement, a post punk hue which is never too far away from most pieces extra relish on the pleasure. Its successor is a look into a calm yet seemingly melancholic heart, another track to interpret as instincts suggest and for ears to warmly embrace.

Through the compelling New Compass and its web like body and the provocative breath and soundscape of Ship Of Theseus, Werner continued to enthral and orchestrate the imagination, the latter's evolution riveting and questioning as it themes its deliberations to question our thoughts.

Concluding with A Return and its haunting cast of minimalistic textures and richly dramatic enterprise, Mode For Titan relentlessly beguiled and pleasured throughout. With instrumental releases we have to feel fully involved in some way or another to connect and fair to say that Josh Werner had us wonderfully entangled from his first notes.

Pete RingMaster (courtesy of the Ringmaster Reviews website)