The
music of Jon Durant needs no introduction to progressive instrumental
listeners. In 2013 Durant joined forces with Colin Edwin for
the first self-titled album by Burnt Belief, and in 2016 they
return for their third set, with Emergent. In
Burnt Belief, Durant and Edwin are joined by drummer Vinnie Sabatino
and the result is yet again an amazing journey into the world
of progressive guitar fusion music. A master electric guitar technician
who mixes in cloud guitars, synths and sequencers Durant was always
influenced by the ECM style of Terje Rydpal and, in Burnt Belief,
joined with Edwin’s influential post-70s King Crimson influenced,
clockwork-style, fretless bass beat to the sound, Emergent at
times takes on a sonically pleasing rhythmic context. Speaking to
mwe3.com about Emergent, Durant adds, "I want to make
records that I actually would want to listen to. My opinion is that
it doesn’t make any sense to try to fit into a formula, just
to fit in at this point. We simply have to be honest about the music
we make, and that should shine through loud and clear. So, when I
am writing these pieces, my idea is to create melodies that are memorable,
but not obvious. Creative but not so far out that you don’t want
to hear it again. It’s a balancing act, and I hope that it’s
been achieved on Emergent." Some tracks, like the title track,
“Emergent” sounds influenced by Carlos Santana’s purist
tone and “Language Of Movement” has an infectious rhythmic
pulse. One of the top instrumental rock fusion albums of 2016, Emergent
should be played many times to fully absorb its kaleidoscopic
moods and sounds. www.AlchemyRecords.com
mwe3.com present an interview with
JON DURANT of BURNT BELIEF
The Emergent interview
mwe3:
Emergent was released in the second half of 2016 and it’s
already being heralded as the best Burnt Belief album yet. How is
Emergent a progression from the first two Burnt Belief albums? You
and Colin Edwin and Vinny Sabatino must be very proud of this latest
instrumental music masterpiece!
Jon Durant: Thanks, we are indeed very proud
of Emergent. After Etymology came out, we played at
the Progtoberfest in Chicago, which was a tremendous success for us.
The biggest thing was that it allowed us to take this very studio
oriented process that we’d created and translate it into a live
setting. We had some trepidation about how that would work, but the
big thing that we discovered was how Vinny instantly gelled with Colin.
One of the things about Vinny is that his “day job” is actually
playing in a funk band, so his groove is really deep. And, that is
also one of the really key things about Colin as well, so I think
that the central advance in Emergent is how that groove played
out. There is a confidence between them that is really strong, and
that in turn allows me to do my thing over the top, and drifting around
it, in a really cool and interesting way.
mwe3: Some of the Emergent tracks blend fusion and instrumental
art-rock while others are quite radio friendly such as track six “Language
Of Movement”. On Emergent, did you try to cover all the
musical bases so to speak? Is that what makes Emergent so great,
in that you have so many sonic guitar styles in play on the same CD?
Jon
Durant: A fascinating thing about Burnt Belief is that we really do
cover a lot of musical ground, yet somehow it always translates into
this totally unique sound and vibe that is Burnt Belief. To be honest,
I never think about writing a radio friendly track, but I do have
one over riding goal on all my records. And that is: I want to make
records that I actually would want to listen to. My opinion is that
it doesn’t make any sense to try to fit into a formula, just
to fit in at this point. We simply have to be honest about the music
we make, and that should shine through loud and clear. So, when I
am writing these pieces, my idea is to create melodies that are memorable,
but not obvious. Creative but not so far out that you don’t want
to hear it again. It’s a balancing act, and I hope that it’s
been achieved on Emergent. I certainly feel like it has been,
but obviously I’m a little to close to it to tell!
mwe3: It’s truly fascinating to see and hear the way you work
with Colin Edwin. With Colin in England and you in New England, it’s
just amazing how well the sound is put together. What is the inside
story regarding this relatively recent space age recording method?
The methods of “recording in remote locations” has improved
dramatically over the past five or so years, almost to the point where
it sounds like you are all in the same studio!
Jon
Durant: The process of making these records has indeed been aided
by the technological improvements that do make it possible for us
to work remotely as we do. That said, we have a process that seems
to work well, and one of the ways we’ve managed to keep some
of the feeling of spontaneity is this: once we’ve got the piece
fully put together, which involves back and forth, editing and moving
parts around, we then brought the tracks to Vinny to lay down his
drums. From there, Colin and I would redo our parts, as live as possible,
to finish them and get a little more vibe to the parts.
mwe3: You mention how you and Colin share a fascination with the
workings of the human mind. Do you find the Burnt Belief music taps
into the area in the mind where people are looking for the element
of self-induced cerebral relief? I was always willing to call your
music New Age Fusion, because it combines that spatial, New Age vibe
with the more rock centric jazz-rock fusion sound. What brought you
into the metaphysical New Age concepts about consciousness emerging
properly and how can we improve our emergent consciousness?
Jon
Durant: It’s important to note that we don’t intellectualize
or conceptualize pieces in advance, the music happens first and then
we start asking ourselves what was going on. That said, there are
a lot of subtle undercurrents within the tracks that will often spark
a larger part of the whole picture. And this is very similar to how
subconscious thoughts or feelings can point you in directions you
wouldn’t have necessarily gone.
As for consciousness, the brain is a fascinating field of study, and
it’s only recently that we’ve been able to have enough scanning
resolution to see what’s going on—and we are still a long
way from knowing very much at all. I’ve been reading a bit of
work by the neuro scientist VS Ramachandran, and his work with phantom
limb patients is really quite extraordinary in that it shows how much
the brain can retrain itself with a bit of work. Some of his work
with split brain patients is also quite interesting. I’ve always
been interested in psychology, and Ramachandran is really going into
some new areas with respect to how neurology impacts psychology.
I don’t have much to say about “higher consciousness”
ideas, as I’m very much in the camp that sees consciousness as
a process within the brain, not an entity that exists separately from
the brain. So to me, any improvements are going to come from hard
work—and that can be in the form of practice, reading, meditation,
or anything that helps you keep your brain engaged on what you are
focusing on.
mwe3: Has Burnt Belief been able to cross over into the jazz radio
world? Do you find there are still some jazz stations reluctant to
play heavier sounding jazz? Even so, is Emergent your most radio friendly
release yet? What is your preferred method of bringing your music
to larger audiences and what does the future hold regarding the possibility
of Burnt Belief live in concert? How has the internet been treating
you lately?
Jon
Durant: Jazz, with a capital J, radio isn’t going to be playing
Burnt Belief any time soon, I wouldn’t think! However, the stations
that extend that word to include fusion and world musics, have found
our music interesting. It’s always a challenge when you make
music that purposefully stays out of obvious genres. I’m always
amused by the variety of responses—there are stations that have
had us in their top 5 tracks for a month, and others that just won’t
play it. I would think there are tracks on Emergent that should be
radio friendly, and early indicators are that it is. We’ll see
how that goes.
As for the internet: the more it becomes a commercialized thing, the
less friendly it is. Once upon a time, when your band posted on Facebook,
all your followers would see it. Now, only a few do unless you pay
for it.
Having seen that the live thing works, we are trying to put something
together for 2017. Unfortunately the costs involved are heavy, especially
trying to get Colin a work visa for the US, so the more likely scenario
is that we’ll be playing in Europe where there’s a little
more audience for instrumental music.
mwe3: What’s new in the guitar world for you and what guitars
did you record Emergent with? Is there a Jon Durant signature
guitar in the future and what would your optimum “signature”
guitar include? Also what’s new in the effects world of recording
for you and what were the key effects and amps that you used on the
Emergent CD?
Jon Durant: One of the cool things on Emergent
is my new Fretless guitar that was built for me by Saul Koll guitars.
It’s a wonderful instrument and I had him put a Sustainiac pickup
in it to help get over the fact that fretless guitars inherently don’t
sustain much. I really enjoy the phrasing that’s possible with
it, and it’s featured on three of the tracks – “More
Snow”, “Emergent”, and “Ghosts Aquatic”.
Funnily, I was talking to Saul recently about the perfect jd signature
guitar and it would really need to be a double neck with a fretless,
and then a midified six string with a great whammy bar. The problem
is that at my age, I’m not sure my back and new knee would be
happy holding it for long!
My
effects and amp haven’t changed a lot from the last record—the
Pigtronix Echolution 2 is a central part of the scene, and the Eventide
9 also plays a big role. One fun piece I added was the crazy Antichthon
fuzz box from Catalinbread which shows up in the nasty guitar stuff
that’s in the background of “The Bubble Bursts” and
some of the cloud bits on “Emergent.” I’m still quite
happy with my Mesa Boogie Mark V amp and that’s responsible for
the lead tones on the record.
mwe3: What has Colin been doing musically of late? I know his partner
in Porcupine Tree, Steven Wilson has been remixing everything! What
do you think of Wilson’s historic work and how do you think he
came up with the remixing idea? What are your favorite Steven Wilson
remix albums?
Jon Durant: Colin has been incredibly busy
lately with a number of projects going on including Obake, O.R.k,
Metallic Taste of Blood, Twinscapes, and many others as a sideman.
I have a number of Steven’s remixes, and many are wonderful.
I especially like what he did for XTC’s Oranges And Lemons
and Gentle Giant’s Power And The Glory. Many of his Crimson
mixes are great, but I’m disappointed with the couple YES ones
I’ve got.
mwe3:
You’ve said Emergent will be the third in the planned
trilogy works with Colin Edwin. Where does that leave Burnt Belief
as far as the future goes? With an album as good as Emergent
it seems the sky is the limit right? I hope there will be more as
the sound of Emergent is brilliant.
Jon Durant: It’s a complicated thing
for us. There’s no question that the musical team of Colin and
I is a strong one. I think we really compliment each other well, and
my areas of strength and weakness are offset by his different areas
of strength. So it does seem as though we could certainly continue
to create interesting and compelling music for some time. The problem
is that making records simply isn’t a cost effective thing any
more. I wasn’t planning on doing this one, but the music began
to happen and we knew it was valuable and needed to get out there
even though I know I’m going to lose money on it. But at some
point, that’s going to have to stop.
