Compost Records reached critical mass around the turn of the century at the forefront of the nu-jazz scene. As such, then Mystefy’s Spark Within is one of the possible logical conclusions to the arc of music the label might explore. The album is fairly straight up cocktail jazz, as performed by a traditional piano/double bass/drums trio. Mystefy sings in faux-husky tones about love, love lost, love gained, love desired. The odd turn of phrase or expletive places her tentatively in the 21st century, but the sexual politics are consistently and decidedly straight out of the 1940s and 50s. “Girls – beware!/there’s a lot of crazy guys out there/they promise you the blue from the skies/it’s just a big bunch of lies” from ‘Beware’ or “I’ll be the wife/you want to come home to” from ‘Spark Within’ are indicative of what to expect.
The music is recorded exquisitely. Each instrument has room to breathe in the stereo field and the playing is continually understated in the manner you’d expect. But the issue is really – what’s the point? There is nothing new being offered here, either musically or lyrically, that hasn’t been around for 50 years. It could be an homage, but there are too many tell tale signs that Mysetfy is taking herself far too seriously for that. There isn’t anything here to distinguish the work from any lounge ensemble in any expensive hotel, trading in all the accompanying cliches.
Adrian Elmer
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