Impeded by a hard-drive crash and conflicting schedules that necessitated a six-year gestation,
Glaciers is at once a follow-up to Shibuya Session EP and distinct from everything these four musicians previously made. Keyboardist and composer
Nicolay and contemporary fusionists
the Hot at Nights --
Chris Boerner on guitar, Nick Baglio on drums, and Matt Douglas on woodwinds -- have recorded and performed with one another long enough to operate on an intuitive level fully explored here. Where Shibuya Session reworked songs from
Nicolay's predominantly electronic
City Lights, Vol. 2,
Glaciers is strictly new material, thereby enabling the producer's supporting trio to stretch out. Contrary to the title, a reference to the challenges of getting the music to the public, most of the album's 40 minutes evoke steady forward motion, adeptly mixing jazz, funk, and downtempo with echoes of Blue Thumb-era
Crusaders and
Prince's
Madhouse that range from faint to ringing. Most special is hearing
Boerner play elegantly needling lines like a guitarist freshly liberated from a metal band intolerant of his habitual soundchecking with
Michael Sembello's part in
Stevie Wonder's "Contusion." The melodies, including several typically spirit-lifting lines from
Nicolay and an abundant quantity out of Douglas' sweet-toned saxophone, are as rich and affecting as they are on any earlier release from the
Foreign Exchange family. For all the inspirations this applies, it connects the quartet to a global network of like-minded progressives that includes the likes of
Terrace Martin,
Logan Richardson,
Slowly Rolling Camera, and Kamaal Williams. ~ Andy Kellman