I'm Not A Gun - We Think As Instruments
[City Centre Offices]

I'm Not A Gun is legendary techno DJ and producer John Tejada teamed up with LA jazz improv maestro Takeshi Nishimoto, for their third album together, We think As Instruments.

Tejada's techno influence saturates the album, baring itself plainly in the techno derived beats which are so precisely placed. Jazz punctuates Tejada's electronic blanket of glitches and diffused melody wonderfully, lifting the pieces and breaking up the close electronic layers.

Nishimoto's classical guitar elevates Soft Rain In The Spring and Ripples In The Water, the latter of which resonates wonderfully, with sounds gently bouncing off one another to repeat melodies and paper thin beats, gradually assembling a heavier ambience which swells with snare and layered programming. A Letter From The Past is a stand out track, swapping guitar
for sarod, muting beats and swapping melody for soft, fuzzed out drones.

The construction of Continuous Sky and Unseen Moment fails to reach the standard set by the rest of the album, which culminates in the tracks sounding quite dated. Where the programming doesn't hit the mark the classical guitar is transformed and becomes almost cheap sounding over the subtle electronica, whereas before it was nothing less than the icing on the cake. This is disappointing, but fails to detract from the superiority of the other tracks.

Throughout the album there's a feeling that although you're listening to electronica, it is definitely electronica from a slightly different angle, from a better perspective. The tracks possess an unmistakeable clarity and form a satisfyingly lucid totality.