11 Dimensions

This is CH Straatmann's second solo album. He's an undeniably talented bass player, who hails from Brazil, with an impressive range of credits. Unfortunately, unless you're a Jaco Pastorius fan, solo albums by bass players tend to be less interesting than those of the combos they help to anchor. Here, the problem is compounded by the fact that Straatmann's electric bass is accompanied only by Rudson Daniel's assorted percussion. Other than Daniel's brief solo ‘Talking Drum’, the seven main numbers are all built around a bass hook and stretched to the three-minute or so mark. Any melody is also sketched on the bass, and the result is a dry and brittle sound with little colour that rapidly wears thin.

In his previous outing, Efecto Vertigo (2013), Straatmann mixed double bass with electric bass and added a few more instrumental tones to the underlying drum and bass, resulting in a more appealing product that occasionally even hinted at Orlando Lopez's marvellous Cachaíto. While both solo outings draw inspiration from the artist's love of Brazilian, Cuban and African music, there's little this time to appeal to anyone other than students of the bass guitar. Ten of the 11 Dimensions went missing somewhere.