David Liebman with Walter Quintus Time Immemorial

Coltrane the voyager. Coltrane the innovator. Coltrane trod where others feared to tread. Drum and sax? OK. Hour-long solos? No problem. Intensity? They can take it.

So, why am I bleating on about Coltrane in a review of a Dave Liebman album? Ok, saxophones, that's what Liebman and Coltrane have in common, right? Yes and no; it's more than that. Liebman has always blown hot. Listen to the fire in Dark Magus. Yeah. Now listen to the exploration in this new album Time Immemorial. Hear the ideas. Follow the thought. Tread the path. See the light. An other-worldly vision. That's music HEART and music SOUL. That's music LOVE. That's COLTRANE.

And now with Time Immemorial that's LIEBMAN. It was a necessary precursor to move from a view of the world as reflected in the self to a very much more externalised approach; one that utilises identity but also acknowledges the inevitability of anonymity created by Time's passing. This is the maturing of an individual and the quashing of an ego, a message skilfully transmitted with clarity and self-assurance but expressed with the sensitivity and flourish of an artist.

The musical moods move from the dark and brooding to exalted Coltrane-esque modal majesty. The message is one of history past, history present and history future: Before, Then, Now, After. A Koyaanisqatsi-type commentary on life's entropically-generated disequilibrium and the human's inability to live in harmony with the global environment. Bluesey staccato solo saxophone lines tell of a world gone wrong.

The album concept is enormous and beyond the sonic experimentation of Liebman's contemporaries. Aesthetically the closest equivalent is Courtney Pine's work with hiphop and drum'n'bass DJs, but there the affect is most important whereas here the message is pivotal in conjoining ear and mind's eye. Just as in Beethoven's 6th., the music is the landscape, is the drama, is the action. During Now of Time Immemorial, the pastoral mulling breaks into an altogether different ecology, a rocky, heavy beat with saxophone patches to simulate overdriven guitars. Mike Oldfield generated all the orchestral voices, including drum sounds, on Guitars from only live guitars. Time Immemorial's sound engineer, Walter Quintus, has done something similar with Liebman's saxophone, but in his hands initial John McLaughlin rapid-fire expression soon decays into overzealous strainings which do him no justice and could pass as a first attempt with a sequencer. This is obviously not so - the manipulations throughout the rest of the music are wonderfully creative and brilliant in their bizareness. The stratification of the extended contemplative passages throughout create a similar polyphonous timbral quality to that of Ligeti's Lux Aeterna, while the walking bass with sliding percussion motif of Then is funkier than a Bonobo on viagra.

The inspiration for naming the album came from an unidentified book, and evidently that was the extent of it's inflence, but, if it was Professor Perry's "From Time Immemorial: Indigenous Peoples and State Systems", then there are more parallels that can be made. This book describes how global economies dictate the futures of indigenous peoples. The terms "invasion", "genocide", "displacement" and "assimilation" are all too topical in present global politics. Now recognises this, the conflicts within mankind itself and the relationship with nature which supports it is out of control. Alternatively it could be Joan Peters' controversial "From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict over Palestine", but the same anthropological relevencies for usurped homelands apply, although the environmental impact is arguably less than that for a rainforest.

Time Immemorial's strong artistic and political statements surpass categorisation amongst typical "concept albums". The maturity and understanding in Liebman's work is outstanding, his composition encapsulating a widely felt concern for global health and humankind's future course. Quintus' production is vital to the project and earns him a well deserved co-artist credit; his construction lends a tangible context to an otherwise abstract notion. Lover's of global issues, big ideas, philosophy, experimental music, solo saxophone and Bonobo chimps need to hear this music.