Maclean has often spoken of the exception he takes with the facade of the ease and success social media users often feel compelled to push forward; this rose-tinted digital perfection often immaterial to the realities of the work, sweat, and day to day drudgery that's often on the other side of that veneer. Maclean's "Lie Of Easy Attainment" deals with this reality -- from hard effort to payoff, and then the growing restlessness of needing to move into whatever the next phase is, and start the process all over again. This tune's frequent texture shifting and tempo modulations borrows from the stylistic influences of Miles Davis' 2nd great Quintet's "Live at the Plugged Nickel" recordings. Brown's solo here is a swirling, chaotic dance; his adept and colourful playing punctuated by trumpet effects again making his time with Brecker apparent here. This solo is enhanced by some truly wild production choices for drums and bass. Maclean's solo is rife with fresh ideas throughout the long story-telling arc it takes -- beginning with a counterpoint against the bass, which settles into a waltz, before ramping up to chaotic madness, and finally completely deconstructing back down to hip-hop introspection. This creates one of Maclean's strongest solo narratives on this recording, supported at every step by the deep interaction of Wutzke and Duff.
from
Convergence,
released October 27, 2023
Composed by Nick Maclean
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Nick Maclean -- piano
Brownman Ali -- trumpet, producer
Ben Duff -- bass
Jacob Wutzke -- drums
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Revolution Recording -- recording studio (Kim Cooke, booker)
Stephen Koszler -- head tracking engineer
Luke Schindler -- assistant tracking engineer
Wayne Ferguson -- piano tuner
Josh Bowman -- mix engineer
Justin Gray -- mastering engineer
Dean Shu -- cover art
Daryl Angier -- liner notes
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Thomas Varey -- director of photography
Brittany Farhat -- camera crew
Matthew Fong -- camera crew
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Canada Council for the Arts -- funding
Ontario Arts Council -- funding
Toronto Arts Council -- funding
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Browntasauras Records -- record label
Steve Danic (Browntasauras Records) -- publicist