Dan Fortin: Cannon - Dan Fortin; various artists

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The voluptuous sound of Dan Fortin’s bass echoes with dark, sustained murmuration on Cannon, a fascinating programme conceived and executed in a series of duets. Each track features Fortin and a procession of intrepid experimentalists, restless in nature, who allow themselves to be led into the unknown seemingly by following the vibrations of a single note. 

There is a kind of propulsive energy in each of the works and this gives poignant meaning to the title of the recording – Cannon – where notes and phrases appear (metaphorically and literally) to be slingshot out of the principal instrument (which is Fortin’s bass) rather than played in the customary sense that music might be played. Thus Fortin succeeds in drawing his duet-partners into the elliptical gravitational force of his music. 

Moreover, using pedals plugged into his electric instrument, as well as through what seem like an array of effects mixed in from synthesizers, Fortin creates a kind of seductive, otherworldly atmosphere beckoning the other instruments. Each of these – saxophone, guitar, piano, trumpet and drums – then becomes fused into the impressive wall of sound created by Fortin to become a shifting panoply of sound. Surrealist and intergalactic pictures emerge. 

Instruments seem drawn to the bass’ powerful centrifugal force. Uh Hundred is a good example. Other works evoke thunderous natural power, such as the rippling musical groove tumbling down the Eastern Side of The Ural Mountains. What a forceful musical ride…!

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