Turtle Records
8713606599008
label website

Take a tabla player, a violinist, a wind instrumentalist and a bass player. Bring them together at night in a church in Holland. Schlepp in some Neuman and Sonodore mikes, a hand-built mixing console and dCS converters, a Mark Levinson 334 and a pair of Avalon Eidolon speakers and let it all happen.


That's what forms the base of bassist Dean Peer's Think... It's all good CD - some friends jamming in a church recorded straight to disc. Only a selection of the actual material was transferred to CD. No dubs, editing or any other type of shenanigans. This way of working captures the moment as it was. Mistakes, background noises? It's all there, but not in any annoying way. Dean Peer is an innovative bass player who produces unknown sounds from his bass guitar. The addition of tabla and other percussion instruments plus such rarities as ocarina and water bottle make the palettes of sounds very rich. The purist recording techniques without any mixing and the minimalist miking techniques produce a highly dynamic sound.


The musical atmosphere varies from bluesy folk to funk and jazz. Dean has a unique style of playing harmonics on the bass that's a combination of slapping and false harmonics from stopped and open notes that make you truly listen to hear everything he's doing. His signature motivation is to not be compared with other bassists like Stanley Clarke, Jimmy Haslip or Jaco. The use of a Mark Levinson 334 via Avalon speakers adds to the natural sound compared to instrument amplification equipment. There's zero distortion from tubes clipping or under-designed loudspeaker cabinets resonating. With this album, Turtle Records proves once again what a small independent label can do - record in a difficult but very satisfying way to capture something truly unique. Even the church bells joined in spontaneously on one track here...