Reviewed by Kerry Blewett

Wow, what an exciting quartet. This CD appealed to me right off probably because I’m a huge Dave Weckl fan. I don’t mean to detract from Walter Fischbacher’s originality in any way but I very often hear shades of other musicians’ work in whoever I happen to be listening to at the time. Only once I read the interview on www.bassplayers.co.za did I realise that Walter’s idol is Chick Corea which explains the musical influences that I heard.
Walter Fischbacher is a pianist/keyboardist who hails from Austria but is now resident in New York City. He is joined by Bernard Ullrich on tenor sax, Ric Fierabracci on bass and Hari Ganglberger on drums. I really appreciated his tribute on the sleeve of the CD to Tommy Motola and Clive Davis for ignoring his work totally, thereby forcing him to get his act together completely on his own. This he has done on his own label, Lofish Music.
The opening track is called “The Opening” and progresses from a slow laid-back beginning to more frenetic rhythms later in the song. Very funky.
Track 2 “Call Pete” contains a rather pedestrian beat overlayed with a tasteful sax solo.
“Lizard” is a rather lengthy slow groove. I found this one to be a compulsive foot-tapper. Again, the manner in which the various sections of the song are put together just reminds me so much of the Dave Weckl band with Steve Weingart on keyboards.
The next track “Dano” starts off with some impressive bass guitar soloing before breaking off into a very laid-back jazzy number featuring Randy Brecker on trumpet.
An octave bass effect is featured very nicely to introduce the next track “Pavel”.Thereafter, the tune progresses into a dance-beat type of number, at least I’d be able to dance to it.
Track 8 is called “Level 12” and is a swinging, jazzy number, which is, as Walter Fischbacher himself says in his interview with Martin Simpson, a nice show-off tune for the jazz cats.
The second last track “B Nice” is a funky groove which I imagine is played in the key of B. Lastly, “Triple S” starts off slowly with some guy fantasizing about sucking a woman’s toes, I guess it takes all types.
My overall impression is that these are extremely fine musicians who I would love to see performing live.