Ben Allison - The Stars Look Very Different Today (Sonic Camera Records 2013)

For nearly two decades, the renowned bassist and composer Ben Allison has continually broken new artistic ground by refusing to bow to complacency. A musician's musician, Allison's career has been defined by his fearless drive to pull inspiration from an extremely wide variety of sources, to mix and match sounds into a cohesive whole that drags jazz kicking and screaming into the future. On The Stars Look Very Different Today Allison continues his outward expansion as a bassist and composer. The recording - his 11th as a leader - features Allison's brilliant working band of Brandon Seabrook (guitar and banjo), Steve Cardenas (guitar) and Allison Miller (drums), each accomplished bandleaders in their own right. Allison not only wrote and arranged the entire album, but for the first time produced and mixed it as well, making this his most personal album to date. The title, drawn from a line in David Bowie's early hit Space Oddity, reflects Allison's lifelong fascination with science, technology and film. These themes are expounded upon throughout the course of the album's eight boldly constructed, cinematic tracks, which include five premieres, two re-imagined earlier pieces and one wholly improvised vignette featuring bass and guitar-driven tape loops.
http://benallison.com/stars/