Penta/Beat Instrumental

Penta Beat (Instrumental)

This single represents a continuation in Gianmarco Liguori’ s exploratory collaboration with some of New Zealand’s great jazz musicians.

Continuing on from his debut ‘solo’ album ‘Stolen Paintings’ Gianmarco treats us with an artistically packaged 7" version of the tune ‘Penta’. Side B introduces a new style from Mr Liguori, the hypnotic ‘Beat Instrumental’, which seems to drift in and out of the moonlight shadows on a deserted Chilean coast.

‘Penta’ is taken off last year’s ‘Stolen Paintings’ album, which found favour with the likes of Gilles Peterson, who aired it on his influential BBC Radio 1 show, bringing with it the unexpected attention of certain DJs around Europe and the US.

Features members of Dr. Tree

Gianmarco Liguori - guitars, bass & synthesiser Kim Paterson - trumpet, drums & percussion Murray McNabb - fender rhodes & synthesizer Andy Atwill - bass.

Gianmarco is also guitarist with Auckland psychedelic surf jazz combo, Salon Kingsadore.

Selected Reviews

A beautifully breezy groover from this hip New Zealand combo -- a track that dances delightfully on guitar from Gianmarco Liguori, and which also has a bit of a bossa undercurrent! Trumpet and tinkling keyboard lines drift moodily over the upbeat, modal rhythms -- and the tune's got a warmth that's really wonderful -- extremely evocative, like some lost European jazz number from the late 60s! "Beat" is a slightly slower, slightly more sinister tune -- with more electric guitar than acoustic, and almost a 60s soundtrack vibe going on overall.
-Dusty Groove America.

I’d say this is definitely world class music from New Zealand.
-Gilles Peterson, BBC 1, UK

Liguori’s compositions capture those elusive, rich flavourings found in the best Ennio Morricone.
-Gary Steel, Metro

Back Cover

Hope builds as a gentle throbbing glow in the distance comes into view, in orbit of the planet. Closer, I see it is another! Another of these great majestic floating orchids of space! The entire body of both creatures erupts into a blinding light of the brightest, purest white. Drawn together, the bright light pulses and glows. Hints of iridescent colours play at the fringes of their bodies, and gracefully they orbit one another.

The dancing accelerates and the light pulses stronger, thumping. They draw closer. A strange song of triumph rings in my ears as the song, colours and a flawless feeling of pure joy mixes in my head in an intense spectacle filling my consciousness completely. My head feels too limited to contain the depth of the emotions being fed to it. The creature senses this and withdraws. I stagger backwards, mind reeling from the experience. My own consciousness and experiences fail to fill the stretched and flaccid container of my mind.

The small versions of itself hang about the air all around, thousands of them now, and amidst this, behind the great creature, another huge body rises up from behind the other side of my ship. I feel both their minds, gently probing at mine - curiously, placidly. Then, like a faint murmur in the background, I feel myself tune in to the thousands of tiny minds of the offspring.

Stunned, I stand for what must have been hours, until a steady beeping in my ears seems to want my attention. I recognise it as the oxygen warning on my suit. Slowly I step backwards, eventually taking my eyes from the specatacle before me, retreating into what I now see as my crude steel cocoon. I remove my suit. Back inside, I numbly drape myself back over my recliner. Instead of the emptiness I had become so familiar with, through the portal I see hundreds of these small dainty creatures bob like a cloud of bubbles around my ship.

I still feel the two great minds. Not like before, but I feel they are there. My mind is struggling to come to terms with a new reality. Colours and pinwheels, as before, float before me in intricate patterns, and I close my eyes. I feel as though something of colossal importance has clicked into place. My previous sadness and wonder at the emptiness of space, and the feeling that something was not quite right, seems to make clear sense now, validated. Visions of a universe full of such beautiful colours, and the calm peacefulness of a loving greater consciousness seems to answer an unspoken question that had been in my chest for most of my life.

I sleep, a sleep of one that has witnessed bare a glistening truth of the universe.

-JCR D'Anvers