Mistico

We Say...

Review by Britt Robson

Charlie Hunter is one of music’s more inveterate and invaluable hybrids, a throttle-tromping rocker with a jazz cat’s technical facility and love of improvisation — distinguished by his Rube Goldberg-like ingenuity in songwriting and instrument-making, which are amply demonstrated via the suite-of-shards tunes and seven-string guitar deployed throughout Mistico.

With aggressive yet empathetic bandmates Simon Lott on drums and Erik Deutsch on various keyboards, Hunter has fashioned the disc with two pervading influences: Classic rock power trios such as Cream, the Who (i.e., the three instrumentalists behind Roger Daltrey) and the Jimi Hendrix Experience, and fusion jazz groups such as the Mahavishnu Orchestra and the Cobham-Duke band. That doesn’t prevent a raft of renegade textures — like Deutsch’s cheesy, Casiotone grooves on “Balls” or the esoteric, New Age noodling (a la Oregon or Paul Winter Consort) that starts the title track — from constantly reshaping the tone and timbre of the songs. The result are bold, swirling but seamless tableaux, like cloud formations in a mountain sky on a windy day.

Sometimes it's difficult to discern Deutsch’s keys from Hunter’s strings, and Lott, too, is an equal partner, comfortable with arena-rock bombast (with solos to match), sophisticated rhythmic accents or tinkly percussion. “Speakers Built In” is probably the most emblematic number, although “Special Shirt” is likewise required listening for the way Hunter’s skronk and wah-wahs add layers of rawhide to an effeminately funky intro before the trio resolves it back into a funk-pop confection.