Trading With the Enemy
In 1996 R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck, Screaming Trees drummer Barrett Martin, and Luna bassist Justin Harwood united under the moniker Tuatara (a large, lizardlike animal) to create music that had little in common with anything they were doing with their full-time bands.Breaking the Etherswas mystical and resonant, combining swirling Middle Eastern melodies, hip-wiggling Latin percussion, and wafting film music. As innovative as it was, the band's follow-up,Trading with the Enemy, makes the debut seem as mainstream as R.E.M.'s hit "Losing My Religion." This time the group has hooked up with jazz players Steve Berlin (saxophone) and Craig Flory (clarinet) and delivered a multitextured musical hybrid that bounces between straight jazz, funk, film scores, and even Japanese koto music yet somehow flows cohesively from one diverse passage to the next. Influences include soundtrack gurus Bernard Herrmann (Taxi Driver) and Ennio Morricone, smoky-jazz greats Ben Webster and Stan Getz, and pimp daddies like Isaac Hayes.Trading with the Enemyis a refreshing change of pace from your average rock side project and one that easily lives up to each member's lofty reputation.--Jon Wiederhorn