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Last month must have been shred month at the MoonJune label. Just as Dewa Budjana’s new barn burning CD hit the shelves, we get equally furious fretboard assaults from Tohpati on his new CD, “Tribal Dance”. In a further coincidental similarity, Tohpati has recorded this in a trio format with an all-star veteran fusion rhythm section, in this case, Jimmy Haslip on bass and Chad Wackerman on drums. The end result is virtuoso interplay from three masters who favor the jazzy end of the fusion formula over the riff driven jazz-rock side of things. This music flows and swings with a light high-speed energy driven by a rhythm section that can’t sit still.
Tohpati easily ranks with the top guitarists today. He favors a slightly processed, but mostly natural distortion ala Jeff Beck or Oz Noy, but his rapid and precise technique puts him more with the jazz crowd. The songs on here are not just jams, but instead feature fairly elaborate structures and plenty of changeups for folks who favor that sort of fusion. This will probably be one of the better guitar driven fusion albums for 2014.