LOVE CRY WANT

This is one crazy, brilliant record. A trio composed of the inventor/guitarist Nicholas, who only ever went by his first name, drummer and steel guitarist Joe Gallivan, and the late organist Larry Young yielded one of the most intense, freewheeling, and visionary records ever to come out of the '70s fusion era -- even though it took until the 1990s to get released. Nicholas played not only electric guitar, but a prototype synthesizer guitar (he and the Electronic Music Laboratories created and patented the synth guitar) and used a ring modulator as well, adding to the textural and sonic possibilities of Young's already groundbreaking organ sounds. Each of the six tracks here begins with a mode, a rhythm, or a riff, and spirals into the stratosphere. Funk is the motivator on "Peace," where Young plays rhythmic counterpoint to Gallivan, while Nicholas wails his ass off all over the place. On read more...