js The world doesn’t need another faithful tribute to Pink Floyd’s much ballyhooed “Dark Side of the Moon”, which is why Boris Savodelli’s “The Great Jazz Gig in the Sky” is such a relief. This isn’t a tribute as much as it is a radical deconstruction and subversive re-creation, while still maintaining a sense of integrity with the original album. This new album sounds like “Dark Side” in a post-apocalypse future, the original album’s big stadium rock sound has been gutted and replaced with whispering industrial drift, echoed sax melodies and mournful bowed strings. Although Savodelli is one of the top singers of today, he delivers these songs with a dry raspy voice that sounds like someone telling their last tale before checking out for good. ’Great Jazz Gig’ is dark and troubled, yet oddly attractive, and even ‘pretty’ at times due to Raffaele Casarano’s sweet tone on the saxophone.

Only three musicians make up this album, the aforementioned Savoldelli and Casarano, and double bass player Marco Bardoscia, who supplies lonely walking bass lines and faux string quartet bowing. All three musicians expand their presence via various looping and echo devices, and everyone in the group manipulates various electronic processing devices. Their overall sound together is of the hypnotic psychedelic ‘nu-jazz’ variety, with an uneasy industrial hum lurking in the background. Fusion guitarist Dewa Budjana joins for a lengthy psychedelic solo on “Us and Them”.

Many consider the original “Dark Side of the Moon” to be a rock and/or ‘progressive rock’ classic, yet when ’Dark Side’ first came out, it was actually met with some trepidation amongst early Pink Floyd fans, as well as fans of early prog rock. Many saw the album’s big stadium sound and simplified music as a calculated move by bassist Roger Waters to achieve greater popularity and more money. This proved true as Floyd paved the way to the heartland of US suburbia for other bands who adopted a similar approach. Savoldelli’s off-the-wall ‘Great Jazz Gig’ returns Floyd to their original intricate and experimental state as originally initiated by Syd Barret, Richard Wright, Nick Mason ... and Roger Waters when he was younger.