Patrick O'Hearn Slow Time

It’s hard to believe it’s been over 10 years since I first heard about keyboardist/bassist Patrick O’Hearn.

It must have been 1993 or 1994 when Dw. first popped in O’Hearn’s 1991 Indigo, an almost big budget soundtrack to a non-existent movie about dark, gothic landscapes, cold midnight cityscapes and lost childhood memories turned chilling flesh.

Indeed, it’s been almost a decade since Metaphor (1996), the last album to make larger use of larger productions, multi layered instruments and big feel. Following a four-year hiatus, O’Hearn returned with So Flows the Current (2000), which showed the former Missing Persons bass player implementing a reductive method. Instead of three different styles of keyboards interlaced with multiple tracks of drums, bass and guitars, one or two instruments were being given time to develop on their own. It took some getting used to especially since I was particularly fond of his earlier work but So Flows the Current and it’s follow up, Beautiful World (2003), ultimately won me over.

So here were are in 2005 and O’Hearn’s latest, Slow Time, seems to initially hold onto that sense of reductive musicianship he’s worked with for the last five years.

“Music For Three Vibraphones” is just that; three vibraphones bing and bang through the track, with nothing else whatsoever to distract the listener. At first, the unique sound of the instrument is pretty welcoming. And though O’Hearn says the performance is done in such a way that no single passage is similar to the next, to the casual listener, it kind of sounds like the same thing stretched over EIGHT MINUTES. Yes, it’s long, and by the time it’s halfway finished, you wonder just when it’s going to end.

Thankfully, the rest of the album isn’t quite so monotonous and in some ways even hearkens back to his earlier days. “I Remember Now” seems to remember O’Hearn’s more synthesized past. Though its languid delivery runs more parallel to current works, its dark, moody sound cannot help but recall his early to mid 90s efforts.

By comparison, the spacey, beautiful “Let’s Move On” feels very rooted in O’Hearn’s more recent forms of expression; more ambient, stream of consciousness sounds that have a way of digging into your brain.

“A Welcome Sight” welcomes in an unexpected drum loop. This was especially unexpected considering Beautiful World was probably O’Hearn’s most reductive work to date. Here, you have what sounds like a maraca, the drum loop and O’Hearn’s trademark water drop key strokes with a silky, warm rhythm section coming in from behind. It’s a shame it’s the second shortest track at just under four minutes. Perhaps some of the time used to stretch out “Music for Three Vibraphones” could have been put here.

Overall, Patrick O’Hearn continues to produce strong instrumental work. While it initially drones a little for my tastes, Slow Time develops – ever so slowly – into another solid effort.