Ostinato's Chasing the Form
2006-08-21 00:56:44 by Mike Wood / MusicEmissions

Chasing The Form is Ostinato's third release, their second on Exile after a self-released debut. Already they sound ancient, with a sound that you would swear has influenced countless other bands. While that may be premature, it is not out of the question that they could be in the big leagues, as a sonic source if not in terms of popular success. Songs like "Goal of All Believers" and "Antiaircraft" drone with deep profound guitars that shimmer and brood with the best. "Between the Years" and "Volant" are already givens for a greatest hits record. To think about what they must sound like live is one the best reasons I have for still listening to music. If you gaze at your shoes while listening to Ostinato, for once you'll find something there at the tip of your foot, something majestic.
(Exile on Mainstream 2006)

http://www.musicemissions.com/display_review.php?id=3339


Chasing the Form--Ostinato
2006-08-07 BY: Wade Coggeshall (WadeTheBlade)

Ostinato is an Italian music term that means a recurring melodic fragment. It's also the name of a magnificent trio from the Virginia/Washington, D.C. region of the United States. Their third CD, "Chasing the Form," is loaded with numinous fragments of melody that intertwine into a masterpiece of modal persuasion.

The group's format is traditional, utilizing guitar, bass and drums. The fey workmanship is accentuated with Hammond organ and various stringed instruments. Together they create a mostly wordless soundscape that suggests the gamut of emotions - from nearly unchecked anger to the deepest wells of happiness.

Tracks like "Goal of All Believers" and "The Art of Vanishing" work a range of tempos. "Goal of All Believers" starts with hazy and heavy-hearted effect before Matthew Clark's drums kick in with machine-gun precision and cymbal-crashing urgency. David Hennessy's guitar settles into a hirsute quality before Clark shakes things up again. His halting cadence on "The Art of Vanishing" builds into a ferocious gallop, alternately slowing and amplifying before receding into a quiet rhythm that allows Hennessy's arpeggioed majesty to take hold.

Bassist Jeremy Arn Ramirez anchors "Antiaircraft" with a snarly, druggy groove. Fractured voices and strums leave a hallucinatory effect, getting more intense as they get louder, coalescing into something grotesquely beautiful. Hennessy unleashes various textures throughout, all hauntingly epic.

Other songs shape up in a more linear fashion, though they're no less striking. Hennessy's guitar on "Monkey Gestures" engulfs listeners with a heavily distorted effect that sounds at once dreamy and nightmarish. His ethereal work on "Between the Years" makes it a slower, enervating sonancy to behold.

Given their numbers, the peaks that Ostinato climb on "Chasing the Form" are simply astounding. The album's title seems to say it all. They're continuously pursuing a form with endless possibilities. Only as exciting as this music is what conceivably lies ahead.

http://www.hardcoresounds.net/modules.php?name=Band_List&file=cdviewer&func=3219


Ostinato -- CHASING THE FORM
This trio from the Washington, D.C. area have an interesting sound -- part pop, part art-rock, part pure raging melodic metal -- that defies easy description. The sound of the songs ranges from melancholy pop stylings to metallic layers of sound to languid grooves to other surprising strategies, all without ever sounding forced or artificial. They favor a highly orchestrated sound, and the trio is assisted on record at times by numerous guest musicians, which just adds more layers to the already-complex sound. The band's name is taken from the Italian musical term for a recurring musical fragment, which is entirely appropriate given their fondness for repeated motifs and a tendency to build into movements that sound like a melodic cyclone, especially on "the art of vanishing," probably my favorite track on the album. Despite the inherent artiness of it all, they remain firmly grounded in a sharp melodic sensibility; even when they're veering off unexpectedly in different directions, the drummer keeps everything from falling apart, and the results are frequently hypnotic and melodically mesmerizing. Think of them as a pop band with a tendency to spiral off into progressive realms or an art-rock band with a distinct pop core -- either way, it doesn't matter. Fine, complex, thought-provoking stuff that sounds great even while challenging the listener's sensibilities.
http://www.monotremata.com/dead/da08/music_reviews.html

Ostinato - Chasing the Form Review
review by S. Gregory

It's taken several listens to full digest this piece, like a fiendish rarebit that just won't go quietly into that good night (that's a mixed Windsor McKay/Dylan Thomas reference... tooting my own obscure horn!) The three musicians that make up Ostinato are from the Virginia/DC area, which is quickly gaining a reputation in my mind for being a fertile musical spawning ground. Someone has tagged them as "epic orchestral rock", or so the promo material claims and hell, who am I to argue with promo material?

"Chasing the Form" is many things, but rarely is it boring. Yes, it can tend to drone on a bit, but there's usually enough release to relieve the ear of all that mounting tension. Strictly speaking, I can't hang a metal tag on the toes of Ostinato. Sure, they rock out from time to time, but there's so much else going on that is more... well, cerebral... that calling it metal would be misleading. Progressive rock certainly comes to mind, diversions in the musical landscape that twist, turn, crawl around, and fall back on each other. And not the technical side of prog, either; more the trippy, visionary, dark side of the prog. I think one of the main reasons why this works out so well is Matthew Clark on the drums. Not that he's whacking away needlessly; no, he's all pocket and foundation, letting Jeremy Arn Ramirez's bass and David Hennessy's guitar flit about and basically do whatever they want. Hennessy's guitar work is all over the map; rocking out, melodic drones, odd early Floydian swells, chirpy little bits that remind me of Adrian Belew or Robert Fripp. No real point in delving into a song by song breakdown here; it really plays out like a single piece of music with brief interludes bridging the parts.

Damn but this thing is a trip. I like it quite a bit. It's a full course musical meal (here I go with another food analogy) and not some fast food quick fix that tastes good because it's high in things that your crave but aren't ultimately very satisfying. If I were more inclined towards smoking certain fibrous herbs these days, this would be like manna from the musical gods. As it is, I enjoy the expansive mind trip Ostinato provides, and see myself coming back to this piece in the future when I need a break from all the blastbeats and gurgling vocals that usually flops around on my musical plate. Great stuff, guys! I'm enthused that this sort of navel-gazing hasn't gone out of style. The musically adventerous out there will certainly want to give this a listen.

http://www.deadtide.com


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