I listen to this Blue Series Continuum disc, Sorcerer Sessions, and DJ Wally's Blue Series contribution, Nothing Stays The Same in the same interval because, for some reason beyond the fact that I received them at the same time, they belong together. Maybe they function as two sides of a newly minted coin - both entirely separate, but joined nonetheless down the center by a solid core of jazz. Neither can truly be appreciated solely as the core, because both veer so wildly away from that center. It's obvious they are of the same currency - improvisation and spontaneity are without doubt the basis around which the two releases were formed. Each are tied in similar ways, both being centered around Blue Series founder, pianist Matthew Shipp, and yet the end results are so distant and distinctly different it's hard to imagine there are any shared bonds. Sorcerer dips into classical for much of the meat of the compositions, where Shipp's piano plays alternately stately and grandiose movements, and programmer FLAM layers over top, in between, and throughout the pieces a texture of modern noise - cars, phones, basketballs, keyboards clacking. Sorcerer is very much a reflection of the world around us - busy, reckless, and distracting. Daniel Bernard Roumain's violin careens above a soundtrack of busy highway noises in "Urban Shadows" while Gerald Cleaver's drumming pounds out an unpredictably clipped and edited pattern. Roumain's violin replicates and repeats, piling one layer upon another for a tensely classical piece ("x6") and Matthew Shipp helms a gently disassembling piano on "Fixed Point" while bassist William Parker scratches out faint rhythms here and there. A nightmarish scene is played out as Roumain's violin circulates high overhead, Parker's bass far below, and Shipp lays out chunks of his heavy block chording - "Particle" sounds destined to accompany the building tension of a horror film. "Last Chamber" marches a dark Shipp theme forward toward "Mist," a creeping, tense, disconcerting theme easily suited to any gritty crime drama.

Tension, darkness, and atmosphere abound in Sorcerer Sessions. Not exactly an easy listening experience, but evocative and intriguing nonetheless.

In sharp contrast is the lush, upbeat Nothing Stays The Same by DJ Wally. Shipp appears here too, but in less of a standout role. Where his moody playing took centerstage on many pieces of Sorcerer Sessions, he more provides material for Wally to sculpt and shift around the other players. Daniel Carter's reeds figure prominently throughout, accompanied by unstoppable beats supplied by Keef Destefano's samples and Guillermo E. Brown's drumming around which bassist William Parker once again lays down the bottom end, creating a gritty, textured groove. The general tone is laid back - DJ Wally isn't out to create an improvisational challenge like that featured on the Sorcerer Sessions. His goal is to use real, live jazz elements to make the ultimate chill-out album. As such, it's best taken as a whole - one track, two tracks, even a few, won't tell you what this album truly has to say. Each track may plumb similar depths, but it's how Wally incorporates his source material that makes each distinctly and fascinatingly different.

And that sums up these two releases - both on the same label, both featuring some of the same players, yet the result is indeed distinctly and fascinatingly different.

(Check out another review of the Sorcerer Sessions.)

(Unproductivity.)