Madhouse

• 8 [Paisley Park, 1987] B

Consumer Guide Reviews:

8 [Paisley Park, 1987]
This isn't "fusion jazz"--it's both more and less, which with "fusion jazz" are both good things. In the tradition of Rogers Nelson Dance Music Inc., it not only digs into rhythms jazzbos would dub mechanical, it also makes up new ones--while permitting the drums what sound like snatches of improvisation. Augmented by snatches of eavesdropped dialogue and one faked orgasm, the rhythms impose an ironic distance designed to discourage us from taking the assorted mood-to-avant clichés up top too seriously. And clichés they remain. B