• digipack edition

A CD that remains compelling from beginning to end, Consentrik Quartet can feel more like a best-of compilation than a new work. To put it a different way, it just might be the finest leader recording of Cline’s long and storied career. And with its deft balance of swing and the avant-garde — check out “The Bag” — it’s also a terrific and meaningful addition to the Blue Note catalog, calling to mind the label’s 1960s classics by Andrew Hill, Eric Dolphy, and others.

Of course Cline, a genial and generous man, can’t help but channel praise toward his empathetic bandmates. Compared to his often-otherworldly Singers, he explains, the Consentrik Quartet is “much more of a jazz group, if I dare use that word. I wanted to have the music reflect the players, and have the players come forth so that everybody is able to hear them and enjoy their lucidity and their mastery.”

PERSONNEL:
Nels Cline - (electric & acoustic guitar, effects)
Ingrid Laubrock - (tenor & soprano sax)
Chris Lightcap - ( acoustic bass, effects)
Tom Rainey - (drums)

TRACKS:
01. The Returning Angel
02. The 23
03. Surplus
04. Slipping into Something
05. Allende
06. House Of Steam
07. Inner Walls
08. Satomi
09. The bag
10. Down Close
11. Question Marks
12. Time Of No Sirens