Review
A sustained guitar note hangs over pulsing bass, electronic percussion, and traces of jazz and global music, making Cobalt Blue feel less like a collection of songs than a single current with changing shapes. Qobuz describes Brook’s approach as “cooler and more lateral,” built from “fluid jazz phrasing, throbbing electronics, and Fourth World globalism,” a useful account of music that is spacious without becoming weightless.
The studio album’s patient, instrumental drift can be immersive or inert depending on the listener: Trouser Press called it “a grown-up alternative to Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells,” but also noted that its “evocative dreamscape” works best as background music. Live at the Aquarium corrects that passivity. Brook’s solo performances roughen the edges, sharpen the rhythmic tension, and expose the physical act behind the infinite guitar; as Trouser Press puts it, the live set has “a sharper edge” that makes it the more exciting half.
