Tom Heasley & Toss Panos
Passages
Full Bleed Music
Tom Heasley & Toss Panos’ Passages falls somewhere in middle of the realms of free jazz and space rock. There’s nothing terrestrial in the least about their sound, but there’s very little in the way of “rock” either. Essentially this album looks at the interplay between Heasley’s effects-laden space tuba and Panos’ free-form drums.
The duo is all about the sonic sprawl; the shortest track on here clocks in at just under 10 minutes, while the longest stretches past the 24-minute mark. The deep brass drones that make up most of these compositions’ undercurrents feel as though they’ve been culled from an episode of ’70s Nova episodes. It has a nice organic sound despite also feeling like the hum of the icy maw of infinite space. Over top of this Heasley lays some celestial whale calls of melody. They’re a slightly lighter hue, but definitely still add to the bassiness of the overall sound. Panos gives these songs a richer texture through actual groove-based drumming as well as arrhythmic percussive clatter. The combination works well on each given track, but taken as a complete album, what begins as an interesting experiment ends up too codified and repetitive after the 70 minutes have run their course.
Tom Heasley: http://www.tomheasley.com • Toss Panos: http://www.tosspanos.com
