Alif Tree - Clockwork (2009)

There was a persistent, smoky jazz flavor that weaved its way throughout Alif Tree's "French Cuisine".
Vinyl crackles, dusty instrumentation and vocals from classic jazz singers like Nina Simone and Shirle
Horn were a strong component to the sound. Along with the jazz influences there were French and Latin
touches as well and the whole thing finished off with a near fifteen minute ambient epic that really
resulted in two tracks with a long moment of silence in between each. For his new album, imagine Alif has
spent some time watching seasons of The Soprano's and discovering a more vibrant, triphop influenced
personality to his taste in jazz.

Just as with French Cuisine, this new album Clockwork explores a variety of jazz, blues and acoustic folk
influenced phases. And as with that previous album, this one ends with an epic 27 minute long experiment.
Of course when you don't count all the dead air, it's really two tracks that equal little more than seven
minutes in all. While the first is a somber piano piece backed by double bass and brushed snare, the second part easily qualifies as a sound experimentation.

"Mai" is one of the strongest tracks here. Its smoky French lyrics are sung by Emilie Satt and it's the
kind of sound that famed compilation series like Hotel Costes built their name on. If you still can't
get over the sound of that Soprano's theme song, you'll love the gravely sound of "Way Down South".
"Reality" and "Without Her(th)" are both wonderful triphop oriented tracks. You'll find some really nice
surprises on the other songs as well, so give it a full listen before deciding what you think.
As far as I'm concerned, with Clockwork, Alif Tree have delivered an album that stands with exceptional
grace next to French Cuisine.

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