Willfully dry and barely funky, this album runs the risk of embracing the double-edged racist stereotype that haunts Japanese musicians working in heavily African American-based styles: polite Asians too intellectual for gritty black music. Thankfully, enough contrary evidence exists on Kondo and Krush's other recordings to dispel this myth elsewhere (and anyone dim enough to think black music isn't cerebral needs a lot more help than a CD review can give). Krush often gets labeled jazzy by critics out of laziness as much as for his easy tempos and willingness to float the occasional horn sample through his atmospheric mixes. Really, he specializes in manipulating thick swashes of sculpted ambient sound over loping, deliberate beats. On his well-conceived hip-hop albums, instrumentals alternate with appearances by guest rappers and vocalists to excellent and varied effect. Kondo, a veteran of collaborations with Peter Brötzmann, Derek Bailey, and Herbie Hancock, deploys none of the expected avant-garde pyrotechnics here, beyond an occasional slight sharpness in tone. Clichéd, smooth-jazz trumpet musings, smothered in echo, are the disappointing fare instead - when someone says an unimaginative trumpet player has a Miles-like sense of phrasing, this is the sort of effort to which they're referring. Still, it's hardly an unpleasant album. A few bright points are the use of Middle Eastern melody and Krush's innovative, spare turntable work. Because it seems interested in little beyond simple mood-setting, ultimately it remains ineffectual and inconsequential. --- Patrick Hughes, JAZZIZ Magazine Copyright © 2000, Milor Entertainment, Inc.