  |
|
October 26, 2006
|
Gino Foti, Sphere of Influence Hang around the burbs of Boston ? let alone downtown ? long enough and you start to forget that you?re artistically spoiled, then you completely forget, and then you reach the point where every record you hear from a local artist receives only the most cursory review from your inner critic: ?Is it on Warner Brothers? No? Okay, then it?s useless.? Billerica?s Gino Foti emigrated from Italy in the ?70s and has been releasing anything-goes world-fusion for ten years now as the bassist for Electrum, a band in which he indulges every Jaco Pastorius fantasy that?s ever popped into his head. Sphere of Influence, as the name hides so well, is a sideways nod to Rush?s Hemispheres album of approximately 650 million years ago, but in title (and liner-note thank-yous to Geddy Lee) only; what Foti is about when he?s alone with his (wild stab here) Rickenbacker is world music, period, and needless to say it?s brilliant, if brilliant to you is firing a fully automatic paintball gun at a spinning globe and splotching every country. The opening zither measures denote Italy, then squat properly in China for six zen-like minutes; ?Amor y Poder? explores bullfighter pump-up; ?Degrees of Force? is salsa for Tucker Carlson. A- ? Eric W.?Saeger |
|
Navigation
