ELECTRUM

Artist's Website
Contact Artist
Massachusetts, USA

Available CDs

"Electrum is Dave Kulju on guitar and synth, Gino Foti on bass and synth, with Joe Musmanno on percussion. Imagine instrumental Rush-like passages and Crimson riffs at times mixed with, strangely enough, an ECM jazz feel, forming an interesting new hybrid.

Electrum combines intense instrumental, often odd-metered, workouts offset by melodically languid but swinging passages. The riff-driven material often begs for another instrument to come in and play over it. An outside producer could assist here, if only to edit the many good ideas they come up with.

Nonetheless, Electrum strikes a great balance in making the dynamics shift through various gears, and the material is happening. The compositions are well-conceived, as they avoid your standard power trio cliches by injecting tasteful synth excerpts - great tunes for cruising down the highway.

Some high points: "Measure of an Unmade Grave", "Desolation", and "Frames of Mind 1 & 2". Hopefully, we'll get some more Electrum to power up with in the future (nice artwork as well)." - Bruce Alger, Progression Magazine

"Electrum's instrumental album 'Frames Of Mind' is a fantastic 63 min long piece of music from the very first note right up until the last. It's one of those albums once you have played it the first time you just have to keep putting it back on. The thing that is hard to believe is that this BIG sound that is coming from my speakers was made by just 3 guys.

So you must be asking yourselves why is this CD so good, well the answer is two-fold, Firstly this is an instrumental CD, but without any of the old cliches that used to dog this field of music, no drum solos, no over elaborate keyboard solos, no overlong guitar parts that sound as though the guitarist is tuning up. Just very well structured songs that are very well written and played that makes the listener feel at ease from the very first note.

Secondly the pieces of music on offer are so well constructed with each track flowing effortlessly from one to another and yet so diverse in places that you find yourself waiting in anticipation and excitement for the next track. This CD is crying out to be listened to.

The wonderful thing about instrumental music is that it's open to the listener's own interpretation of events. Let me try to explain. Take the opening track 'Ascension', with it's wonderful classical keyboards work and it's powerful rhythms, setting the scene for whats to come, drawing the listeners attention from the first note it kind of grabs you, wanting you to and believe me you will listen, oblivious to the outside world for just over an hour to the wonderful songs that make up 'Frames Of Mind'.

'Desolation' reminds me of a funeral, not your standard 10 people round a grave affair, but a good old Victorian funeral with it's almost endless procession of horse drawn carriages and both men and women dressed in the finest clothes.

'Voices' well that could mean almost anything, but to me with it's lovely jazz intro, frantic guitar parts and keyboard works reminds me of a confused state of mind of somebody always searching for something, but that something is always just out of reach.

The power and passion of 'Disagreement' sums up perfectly two people falling out and then making up or how about the first part of 'Frames Of Mind'. 'Cognitive Synergy 'with it's powerful rhythms puts me in mind of my favourite Rush album of long ago 'Moving Pictures'.

My interpretation, yours or anyone else's of 'Frames Of Mind' , may not necessarily be in some ways the same as Electrum's interpretation, but because of it's style and instant accessability it allows the listener if you like to create their own 'Frame Of Mind' and if that is the case Electrum have done there job very well indeed.

If your idea of good music just runs to 3 minute bursts of aggression based around sex, drugs and rock'n'roll then steer clear, but if like me you fully appreciate quality thought provoking music played by musicians of outstanding ability then this CD come very highly recommended.

One of the quality CD releases of the year so far!!!" - Derek Daniel, Stormbringer

"I'm gonna start with the end on this one: BUY THIS ALBUM!

OK. This was another first for me, since I had never even heard about these guys before George zipped me their disc for review, but I am very glad he did. The band performs a highly disciplined brand of instrumental melodic prog and this one has it all, being a mostly mellow to medium offering full of spacey ambiance and "fusiony" jazz punctuated with the occasional hard rock reference, but always with strong melody and masterful execution. This is specially remarkable given that the first three compositions were penned by Foti, while the remaining 4 are by Kulju, and yet, there is total cohesion and sonic harmony on the album. The arrangements are seamless, and the album was a pleasure for me to listen to from beginning to end. For those of you who calculate for a living, this one ranks high. I guess you're expecting me to say they sound like this or that, but nothing comes to mind. They sound like their name implies, a shiny alloy 4 parts gold and one silver, and that's a damn good thing in my book.

In all fairness, I don't know how well Electrum will fare in a market flooded with hundreds of unknown bands struggling desperately for a chunk of the wallet of a largely snobbish crowd, especially because they don't cave in and feature guys who sing like fairies or use mellotrons anywhere in their music or packaging. It is a sad thing, but unfortunately talent alone is not enough.

For the heretics out there, surf down to their website, listen to their music and decide for yourselves, but I definitely think people who are so meticulous in their craft deserve our support. Believe me, this album is at least one or two sigmas to the right of the average.

I'll say it again, just in case you missed the start: BUY THIS ALBUM. It will only get better with repeated listens." - Luis Nasser, Prog4You.com