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Editorial Reviews

Two very good-sounding live performances of the early Nucleus lineup, including Chris Spedding on guitar and soon-to-be Soft Machine members Karl Jenkins and John Marshall, are combined into this hour-long CD. Drawn from European gigs in March 1970 and February 1971, Hemispheres includes versions of songs from the first three Nucleus albums, on which they were at the forefront of early jazz-rock fusion in the U.K. Although the liner notes point out that bandleader Ian Carr "has always been keen to distance the band" from comparisons with Miles Davis' late-'60s and early-'70s sound, the resemblance is nonetheless fairly strong, though hardly in an unflattering way. The interaction between horns, electric guitar, and electric piano in particular are very much in line with what Davis was doing on albums such as In a Silent Way. But while there are electric instruments, and a certain rock/funk energy often informs the proceedings, this is still very much an instrumental jazz sound, more aligned with both meditative and challenging modern jazz exploration than rock riffing. Some rock elements do come into play on "Twisted Track," which had originally been done by Spedding's previous progressive rock band the Battered Ornaments, and the bluesy riff anchoring "1916." The material from the 1971 performance finds the players getting into a decidedly more funk-influenced direction in some passages, but without substantially changing their core overall approach. Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide

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