Primarily instrumental Progressive Rock foursome Peridoni is having a great first month of 2017, and its prospects for the rest of the year look even brighter. On Jan. 31, the Cincinnati group — which has spent the past few years building its name on the Jam-band circuit —released its second studio album, Jade, the follow-up to last year’s Pixel Pieces on a Parallel Plane.
The album’s release comes on the heels of Peridoni’s announcement that it has signed with a booking agent, Omni Arts Group (which also works with Cincy’s Rumpke Mountain Boys and many other touring Jam scene regulars), which will keep the musicians even busier on the road in the coming months. This weekend, the band plays the Winter Werk Out festival in Columbus, Ohio (created/curated by established band The Werks), while more tour dates are being announced regularly; visit facebook.com/peridonimusic for the latest.
Like Peridoni’s debut LP, Jade is seven tracks long, which for most bands would qualify as an EP. But Peridoni’s soundscapes aren’t hindered by any restrictive “three-minutes-for-radio” length goals. Instead, the band stretches things out with winding arrangements that showcase both the musicians’ individual chops and the close-knit musical bond they have with each other. The tracks are also primed for improvisational excursions within those arrangements, a cornerstone of Peridoni’s live appeal.
The anchor of the band’s sound is the expressive but air-tight rhythm section of Kaleb Perrin (bass) and Ben Steinkamp (drums), who provide the foundation of Jade, flowing with the textural sound waves guitarist Cory Donnini and keyboardist Kevin Harris conjure up. The sweeping, circular layers on “Prisma Color” and “Follow Thru” offer great examples of the imaginative keys/guitar tandem at its most effective; the spinning, often ambient swirl created between the guitar’s prickly, echoing riffs and the swelling synth washes is so hypnotic, you lose track of who’s playing what almost instantly, even as both instruments morph and change hues throughout.
Jade’s leadoff track, “Fission,” is a great display of the locked-in interplay between all four musicians. Showcasing a more Jazz/Funk Fusion side of Peridoni, “Fission” finds Perrin’s bass dancing around Steincamp’s beat without ever losing the persistent groove, while the chameleon-like keyboards shape-shift from twinkling piano to funky organ stabs and surges to big synth riffs and Donnini’s guitar work soars in and out. Throughout it all, melodies are maintained and revisited, and the players combine precisely on one thick recurrent riff as if to drive home their musical togetherness.
“Are You There” is placed squarely in the middle of Jade, and it’s a potent programming trick. The only track on the album to feature vocals, the song is like an island in the middle of an ocean of trance, giving the record as a whole an almost cinematic feel. The band’s general tone doesn’t change too terribly much (outside of the driving acoustic guitar), but the mere presence of vocals grabs the listener’s attention immediately. Impressively, given the all-instrumental nature of the rest of Jade, “Are You There” is an incredibly well done ballad with warm, soulful singing. But it works so well within the sonic framework of Jade because the vocal melodies float into the track as if it were another instrument. It’s reminiscent of how Perry Farrell’s voice wraps around the instruments on Jane’s Addiction’s trippiest songs.
It’s hard to decipher a running “concept album” theme on a recording that is 90 percent wordless, but there’s something about Jade’s entrancing cohesiveness that makes it feel like these tracks belong together, in precisely the order they are presented. That’s the hallmark of a true “album,” which is becoming a lost artform in the age of easy skips and shuffling playlists. Peridoni does albums well, with Jade showing a sense of depth behind the noodling and offering a broader context to understand the thoughtfulness behind the jams.
Jade is currently streaming at soundcloud.com/peridoni and the band’s Bandcamp site here, from which you can download it at the price of your own naming . Get more info about Peridoni (including links to social media accounts and other streaming/purchasing options) at peridoni.com. Listen to “Prisma Color” below (click the links in the player to go to the Bandcamp page).
CONTACT MIKE BREEN: mbreen@citybeat.com
This article appears in Feb 1-8, 2017.
