Sony
2006
The Hidden Land
About This Album
Nearly three years since the outrageous exercise in self-indulgence that was the three-disc Little Worlds, Béla Fleck & the Flecktones come back to the marketplace with The Hidden Land. The former outing was so excessive that Sony issued a single-disc sampler from the set hoping it would sell. Thankfully, the new set is a single disc, and for fans of the band there is plenty here to delight. The fusion of instrumental musics here -- jazz, bluegrass, funk, classical, and some global sounds is called by Fleck "serious Flecktones." It feels serious. For starters, the quartet dig into Bach's Preludes and Fugues (No. 20 in A Minor) to kick things off. It's a classic piece of the Flecktones wearing the original enough to make it their own. It's entertaining only for the sound of Fleck's 1937 Gibson Mastertone banjo. Much more compelling is "Labyrinth," a winding, knotty journey through jazz and improvisation -- the funk undertones of the piece are carried by Victor Wooten's gnarly bass line. But even here, Future Man's "Synth-Axe Drumitar" and his vocals -- poorly aping Naná Vasconcelos' glorious wordless singing from Pat Metheny's earlier recordings -- are more than what's really necessary.
Track List (try tracks 2,4,7,9 and 10)

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