By Glenn Astarita

Founded in 1984 by guitarist/composer Nick Didkovsky, New York City based “Doctor Nerve” have been terrorizing audiences here and abroad with their distinctive blend of avant-garde classical, progressive-rock and modern jazz. And on their 7th release titled Ereia, the septet along with the “Sirius String Quartet” perform a series of works that entails three movements recorded live and in the studio.

Nick Didkovsky’s compositional ideologies and/or implementations often defy categorization. The first movement sounds like some bizarre spin on a C&W hoe-down featuring clapping and peppery strings amid a sense of adrenaline induced urgency. Jaunty titles such as “She Look He Spit”, “Flesh Comes Out” and “The Thorn Piercing His Coat” might seem a bit morose by design yet the band and the “Sirius String Quartet” alternate and converge via razor sharp choruses and scathingly emotive motifs. Throughout, the music contains unorthodox time signatures, incidents of semi-controlled mayhem; boisterous yet shrewdly performed horn charts and sterling improvisational sequences. The twenty-minute Second Movement titled, “For Being Nice To The Wrong People” is a live 1997 performance that boasts abstract military march beats, punctual arrangements and heated soloing from trumpeter Rob Henke, woodwind specialist Yves Duboin and others. During the third movement the listener will hear multi-layered horn charts, crashing percussion and hybrid classical/prog-rock lines engulfed within intricate patterns that dispel raw energy yet tight and well-organized arrangements. (In fact Didkovsky scored some of these pieces via computer generated software.)

Ereia is delightfully unruly and at times ominous yet Didkovsky’s extremely complex writing and the musician’s synergistic involvement conveys a lucid depiction of the visual, as though they had embarked on some hallucinatory or previously unimaginable adventure! Recommended.

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Doctor Nerve is: Nick Didkovsky; Electric Guitar, Composer: Greg Anderson; Bass: Leo Ciesa; Drums: Yves Duboin; Soprano Sax, flute: Rob Henke; Trumpet: Michael Lytle; Bass Clarinet: Kathleen Supove’; Keyboards. –

Sirius String Quartet: First & Third Movements; Joyce Hammann; Violin: Mary Whitaker; Violin: Ron Lawrence; Viola: Tomas Ulrich; Cello: Second Movement; Todd Reynolds; Violin: Liz Knowles; Violin: Ron Lawrence; Viola: Mary Wooten; Cello

Cuneiform Records: www.cuneiformrecords.com

Dr. Nerve: www.ingress.com/~drnerve