Vega Trails is described as a chamber-jazz project led by Milo Fitzpatrick (Portico Quartet), featuring saxophonist Jordan Smart, pianist Taz Modi, and an ensemble that includes cello, orchestral strings, vibraphone, and piano. Sierra Tracks was inspired by the foothills of the Sierra de Guadarrama mountains, north-west of Madrid, Fitzpatrick’s home since August 2022. I first discovered Vega Trails thanks to Kevin Scott of Living Voice who always manages to find interesting music that sounds good and played me their first album,Tremors in the Static, released in 2022. So it looks as if they take their time, it also sounds that way but apparently Fitzpatrick had only a month to compose five tracks and complete arrangements for a ten piece string section, and get the gist of conducting so that he could work with the label mate Hania Rani’s string ensemble at Polish Radio in Warsaw.
The result sounds anything but rushed however, Sierra Tracks is a very relaxed, open and cinematic album full of beautiful acoustic tone. In some ways the opener Largo reflects the album artwork, it’s simple and atmospheric, conjuring up open vistas with scale, depth and lovely bass. It is landscape music on a grand scale but has an emotional impact beyond what one might expect.
Other pieces are on a smaller scale with mellow sax, soft bass and even softer drums. The music on Sierra Tracks is big on flow and reverb but not so chilled as to become ambient, there’s a drive that keeps you listening. Murmurations is a standout, it features lovely string pluckage over a snappy drum sound that contrasts with charming piano and strings.
Reverie on side two of the vinyl features some lovely sax playing, long notes with superb timbre that escape the notion of jazz altogether, the sound is uncanny and almost like pure light. Murmur amps up the drama with sweeping strings and deep bass wallows to highly engaging effect.
Sierra Tracks is an unusual three sided vinyl release, so you have a side of dead wax with which to set up turntable anti-skate/bias, but the fact that Gondwana haven’t squeezed the whole thing onto two sides is one of the reasons why it sounds so good on this medium. The download is available in hi-res 24/96 WAV form from Bandcamp so those limited to digital can get pretty close to the sonic goodness as well.
But dropping Sierra Tracks on the turntable after a week of streaming at very high quality is a lovely experience, it sounds beautiful in a massively atmospheric fashion and is highly recommended to anyone wanting to experience sumptuous, multi faceted landscapes without opening their eyes.
Jason Kennedy