- Words Notion Staff
Burgeoning Australian-born artist Lance Gurisik lands with his electronic-jazz fusion album, ‘Cull Portal’, out now.
Lance Gurisik’s ‘Cull Portal’ was a Covid conception, created at a time when the world was in limbo. Luckily, though, it doesn’t seem to have soaked up any of the stand-still nature of the pandemic. It’s an exploration of modal harmony and improvisation over the course of eight spirtiual jazz/electronic tracks. With woozing analogue synths, the grand piano, live drums, a string section and Jeremy Rose’s tenor sax, it’s a colourful tapestry that pays ode to the past, while striving ahead in terms of electronic music’s bounds.
Surprisingly, it wasn’t until later in life that Lance’s passion for music was ignited. He first picked up a guitar at 15, and began self-teaching along to videos of his favourite bands. Not long after, he was encouraged to audition as a compose at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, where he completed his Honours in composition. Over the following years, he went on to become an in-house composer at Song Zu, tour as an electronic artist, end up in a warehouse community in north London, make his debut at Boiler Room, and perform at numerous venues and festivals internationally. Then Covid-19 struck – and ‘Cull Portal’ was born.
Speaking on the album, Lance shares, “I set myself the task of writing something as economical as possible that slowly unfolds into larger, more complex structures. The seed idea started as a solo piano piece, which later formed as ‘Cull pt II’ and from that seed, the rest of the album grew organically.” He continues, “At the time, I remember a friend showed me this one particular Keith Jarrett live performance from 1976 called ‘Eye of the Heart’ pt. 2’. I was obsessed and couldn’t stop listening to it. It’s such an incredible journey from start to finish. I hadn’t heard a piece of music that had moved me like that in a long time. I then went on a rabbit dive into a lot of spiritual/ ambient/ modal jazz records that were recorded around that time and really wanted to explore that sonic world and that musical language, in a contemporary way, that fused electronics and live recorded instrumentation.”