Fragmentation is a captivating full-length statement from Southern California-based bassist and composer Daren Burns, representing his eighth album as project leader. The music navigates between a variety of realms — from funky rock vigor to late-night jazz spells, resulting in a project that revels in satiating structural and stylistic expanses. The production effectively bridges an artful gap between experimental improvisation and dark, filmic soundscapes.

“Tips for Musicians When Performing in Bars” sets the album into motion with a strong dose of creative spontaneity. Stop-start percussion and an array of instrumentation resemble a tune-up of sorts, steadily accelerating into a brisk pitter-pattering and enthused glimmering. The production shifts between familiar jazz flourishes and spacey, otherworldly charm. Whirring keys and frantic woodwinds delight in their invigorating interplay. Arriving next, “Bald with a Beard” struts a funky rock spiritedness, where debonair guitar licks and warming brass coexist beautifully, while “Phone Zombies” continues the album’s electric start with a delectably ominous drive — avant-garde jazz meets horror movie soundtrack.

Another standout track shows in “Slipshod Demigod,” a 10-minute epic with a masterful rhythmic presence and rock-ready passion — its vibrant bass lines and tribal-like percussion stirring into blares of psych-ready guitars, while a brief yet impactful flute-tabla duet also entices. The similarly-epic title track aptly comes next, maneuvering between crunching guitar ardor and midpoint late-night jazz chilliness; its stretches between boisterous and subdued are enthralling. A moody, hypnotic take on Nine Inch Nails’ classic “Hurt” concludes the album, stunning in its haunting, Lynchian slow burn and culminating expanse of instrumentation. Fragmentation is a beautifully expansive, memorable listening experience from Daren Burns.

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“Tips for Musicians When Performing in Bars” other tracks featured this month can be streamed on the updating Obscure Sound’s ‘Emerging Singles’ Spotify playlist.

We discovered this release via MusoSoup.

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