Years ago I worked at a local record shop. I was there for years and it was there that I honed my ear by broadening horizons and discovering new styles that fit my ever-changing tastes. On paydays, we used to take home a ton of CDs and LPs to check out called “sign-outs.” If we liked them, we’d add them to our collections or, if they didn’t make the cut, bring them back to the shop. A co-worker and good friend of mine used to hang out and go through our sign-outs with a couple of beers. He developed a system of deciphering albums ‘keepers’ or not by skimming the first 45 seconds of each song and then skipping ahead, which I always found odd. Sure, it saves time, but it certainly doesn’t give you the full picture of what an album has to offer.

With The Hidden’s self-titled release, I almost made my friend’s mistake. Upon first listen, which was very short lived due to mood or cosmic gas, I immediately snarled in my mind, “Damnit! Why do I have to review noodly free jazz!? I’m so over it!” Did anybody miss that high moment of snobbery? I nearly did until my next couple of listens, where I listened with purpose and intent.

The secret power of The Hidden lay in the fact that while it is categorically free jazz, it actually slinks through songs with purpose. That purpose is very cinematic, but not in the definite way that a film soundtrack does, but with an openness for the beholder to interpret. “Isolation,” the opening track, starts out with a knotted ball-of-twine horror soundtrack violin and percussion for about a minute and a half before a huge, ominous xylophone signals calm. For the next few minutes, cello and violin seep slowly across the floor like the blood from the previous horror, as xylophone resonance wills a spirit up out of the turmoil. From there, it is a slow, nearly discordant journey downstream, which sets the tone for the rest of the album as mostly a contemplative, almost prayer-filled solemnity I usually associate with chamber or neo-classical music (think Arvo Part). It seems so controlled that I still find it amazing that this is done primarily by improvisational players, culled primarily from the Northwoods Improvisers in Michigan. Their sound alone communicates endless hours spent playing together, working out motifs to dance around and ways to play off of and with each other.

This synchronization shows through on “Ipecac” with a sense of cohesion, collusion even, in the way the upright bass chases the violin around like a kid brother or a schoolyard crush. And on “Orient,” the way the violin is abused sounds like a demon torturing a soul it has long awaited to lord over with delicious malicious intent. The one track that really sticks out is “Hidden 10” with its simmering soprano sax and heat trance-inducing hand drums. I am immediately transported back to my travels in the Middle East in this up-tempo seance. Throughout the album, however, my favorite element is the xylophone player, who immediately conjures up Bobby Hutcherson in my mind, particularly Hutcherson’s play on Eric Dolphy’s Out To Lunch.

All praise accounted for, I must sadly say that this is not an album I would reach for to listen to on a consistent basis. It fills a space of sound that is pretty unique to itself, but at the end of the day, just doesn’t groove enough.

-Gabriel Bogart