Colin Stetson - Judges
Love to hear artists do something new and Stetson does just that, not only using a bass sax (afaik an instrument that is used not very often) but using it to create a unique brand of minimalism rather than making jazz like most people would. It's amazing how many kinds of sounds he can make with one instrument alone, at times even using it as a means of percussion while still playing his waving patterns of saxophone sounds. It is at the very least interesting, the only problem here is that the music is not developed and multi-layered enough to be able to apply enough variation to it all, resulting in it getting, well, not necessarily stale, but familiar after a while. Still, hearing Stetson play an intense, brooding cover of a Muddy Waters song is impressive and gives off a very unique atmosphere. I dug this a lot in the end, extra props to Stetson for creating real avant-garde music in this decade by thinking outside of the box, using what we thought was a jazz instrument as something entirely different. With some more elaborate composition I could see a bright future ahead for him. 7.5/10