Tohpati Bertinga

Riot Tohpati Bertinga

With his previous MoonJune Records releases as a member of pioneering Indonesian fusion groups simakDialog ("Patahan" and "Demi Masa") and Ethnomission ("Save the Planet"), Tohpati Ario Hutomo served notice to connoisseurs of intelligent and adventurous guitar playing that he is a galaxy-class player of limitless instrumental ability and rare imagination. His latest MoonJune CD, "Riot ", provides more overwhelming evidence that Tohpati is quickly taking his place alongside the world's great guitarists in any genre. Riot, a power-trio session with his group Bertiga - featuring the superlative rhythm section of electric bassist Indro Hardjodikoro and drummer Aditya Wibowo "Bowie," who match the guitarist blow for blow - is Tohpati's most playful MoonJune offering to date, a jubilant, high-energy romp through a garden of musical delights, from ripping fusion workouts redolent of Tony Williams's Lifetime or Pat Metheny at his least well-behaved ("Pay Attention"), to ferocious, dizzying math-metal ("Upload"), to spiraling, Holdsworthian liquid arpeggios (the title track), with occasional hints of Indonesia's glorious musical heritage showing through, particularly in the rhythmically intricate unison passages. Whether delivering a mini-clinic in tasty rock guitar idioms in "Rock Camp," which evokes all the excitement of a youthful first encounter with rock and roll, or giving a grand tour of various Old World musical dialects in "Middle East," Tohpati's mastery of multiple musical languages is as natural as breathing. In a digipak.