- Dave Rodriguez aka the aptly titled Godriguez isn’t obviously concerned about the limitations of 2020. If I had to guess, he’s much more focussed on laying down albums in single takes than remembering he’s not allowed across the border. His latest jazz-urban-world-funk tinged outing with his regular collaborators in Godtet is a through-composed EP or Suite. It signposts a transitional moment, after the band's initial, self-titled outing and LP II, Rodriguez has described the new record as a summation of what’s come before, clearing the deck for LP III, due in just two months. I can’t help but note that he’s described the forthcoming LP as another watershed: a transition point to still more greenfields. So there’s not one, but two whole new sounds in the offing for Godtet? Well if my therapist has taught me anything in the endless now of this year, it’s to forget about the looming future and focus on the moment, which, as it happens, already comes furnished with a Suite of opportunities.
One of the strengths of Godtet is how well its core unit -Godriguez on guitar and samples, Andrew Bruce on keys. Dominic Kirk on percussion, Jan Bangma on bass and Tully Ryan on drums- melds. They’re a well-oiled, improvisational machine that’s completely convincing, making it up as they go and beyond that, moving the whole sound through style after style. I was actually getting in a little bit of a sweat, trying to remember what happened and when in this endlessly evolving, musical history. Suite is supposed to capture everything that’s come so far, a static image image of what the band has been, up to this point and -in an effort to really make sure that happens- this fifteen minute still-life was all written down beforehand, rather than just assuming that the normal, improvisational game plan would let all the pieces fall into place.
That being said, I’m not sure my memory of Godtet’s back-catalogue is quite the same as theirs. If you go back to the band’s first, self-titled full-length, for instance, its most frenetic moments, like the frothing live-funk-idm insanity of Hekkaz -which, to me are one of the boundary markers for Godtet’s musical world- well there’s nothing like that on Suite. So too, the world influences on this new record -be they Afro-Cuban, Polynesian or African- come into their own in a way I haven’t previously heard. Even the notion of Suite as a statement set in stone seems curious when you can go back and hear a quite different version of EP track Women’s Choir on the Seven Wonders compilation from the beginning of the year.
When it comes down to it, I’d be hard pressed to finger point about any of this: the transformative, mercurial qualities of Godtet are fundamental to my enjoyment. I’d also like to talk more about what you actually get here than what you don’t. The influences from across the globe really do make themselves felt. The very first cut, Mens’ Choir takes its name from a truly wonderful coda of male voices, with production that makes it sound like they’ve drifted in from another time altogether. The combination of lap-steel, tribal percussion and those rich, Polynesian vocals makes the cut seem very Oceania-derived, to me.
The literal quality of the titles continues with Struck Bamboo Pipes No.2, driven by the eponymous percussion, though it never drowns out the ethereal quality of the production or the moody harmonies chiming on the guitar and keys. Dub Horn nearly forgets why it’s called that, spending half its length engrossed with more of those quiet, other-wordly sounds, before waking up with a forceful rhythm and sonorous boom of different instruments that slowly bleeds out into just the dubby brass.
Caribbean is another half-heard snatch of exotic sounds: chanting and percussion this time, which dies down to let Morocco build into the moodiest moment of an already dark and fretful record. The snarling guitars get me every time until they’re suddenly chopped off by more chanting.
The ‘90’s downbeat that takes up much of Womens’ Choir really stands in contrast to the complex rhythms that spill out of every other corner on this record, but act as a breather, a moment of hopeful respite against the background of approbation and melancholy that is the predominant emotional theme of Suite. Except its ending, that is, which floats gently, even more ambient than what’s come before, bringing in the Mouth Harp of its title and a polyphonic chant for a quiet, joyful finish.
I read a 2019 Purple Sneakers interview with Dave Rodriguez where he talked about his listening habits. It should come as no surprise that he said: “These days I mainly listen to traditional music from around the world.” A cavalcade of Afro-Cuban Yoruba music, Solomon Islands’ traditional composition and Toumani Diabate West-African kora classics followed. It helps make sense of Suite as more of a picture of where Godriguez and co. are at right now, than anything else. If it is a record of yesterday, its otherworldly production, unsettled emotion and half-heard snatches of musical cultures make the music seem like a dream at waking: less a literal recollection of what’s been and more an uncanny feeling that slowly melts with the new day. The past seems hazy and I don’t know what that new day holds for Godtet, but as the nighttime strangeness fades, it feels like only good things are on the way.
- Chris Cobcroft.