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Mythological Jazz Asteroids in the Afro Futurist Space Belt
Trust In The Lifeforce Of The Deep Mystery: The Comet is Coming
on Impulse! Records
Experience by itself, the phenomenological philosopher Edmund Husserl said, is not science. In the hands of London band The Comet is Coming, experience is a strict adherence to improvisation and exploration that filters the scientific process into a musical call and response. It has purified their sound. So perhaps Husserl is only part right. Maybe some experience is scientific. Maybe some music is science.
Because of this comprehensive reliance on exploratory noises, there’s no true designation for the band, whose album Trust In The Lifeforce Of The Deep Mystery was released in March 2019 on Universal Music’s legendary jazz label, Impulse! Records. Each song on the album is illusory. The firm musical structure of one section burns away to something entirely different a few bars later. And that cycle echoes as the musicians repeatedly crescendo in metamorphosis. One song marches into dancing electronics. Another one animates a glistening African polyphony with new romantic keyboards. As such, bandmembers have balked at stringent jazz classifications in interviews. Their music launches across a broader spectrum, though there is no denying the jazz pedigree that…