Two Worlds

A prestige project for techno auteur and longtime '70s jazzbo Kirk Degiorgio, Two Worlds finds the British producer inviting a few friends over to form an ensemble named Kirk Degiorgio's Offworld. Given his decade of contact-making around the world, Degiorgio came up with a good group, including the core trio of the seminal Brazilian jazz unit Azymuth (Jose Roberto Bertrami, Ivan Conti, and Alex Malheiros) plus Jimpster's Jamie Odell. The band's meld of '70s space jazz (á la Herbie Hancock's Headhunters) and fusion-lite certainly isn't surprising from the man who titled an EP The Message in Herbie's Shirts. Except for a few pleasant grooves and an overall nice period feel to the record, however, Two Worlds has little to say, similar to the elevator Muzak that Two Worlds unconsciously mirrors. Highlights are difficult to pick among the scads of echoey electric piano solos and up-tempo, jazzy breakbeats, but "Ostinato" and "Tornado" are the tracks most worthy of play. Fortunately, Degiorgio arranged a new As One full-length (21st Century Soul) for release mere days after Two Worlds.