Chicken Noodles

Buckethead is a busy man. He has helped record more collaborative albums than most artists have solo albums, in addition to his vast self-produced discography and numerous guest appearances, side projects and heaven knows what else. A lot of these are surprisingly decent, particularly his work with keyboardist Travis Dickerson, whom he’s collaborated with in side groups like Cobra Strike and Thanatopsis as well as on each other’s various solo releases. The Chicken Noodles concept isn’t one of the two’s finer pairings, but I’m certain there’s still an audience somewhere that will appreciate its particular flavor of passive fusion.

Chicken Noodles is a fitting name for an album of large-scale ambient-jazz pieces, though the condensed label on the can is certainly ironic. While this isn’t nearly as gratuitous as other guitar/keyboard collaborations like the semi-famous Petrucci/Rudess live album, it’s a safe bet that these songs were live-recorded, improvised pieces with the two musicians simply playing off one another until somebody decides that the “song” is over. The use of electric piano and synthesizer-like guitar effects calls to mind groups like Return to Forever or later-period Mahavishnu Orchestra, but stripped of their percussion, vocals, and exhibitionistic tendencies down to a minimalistic level like that which you might hear from a Robert Fripp or a Brian Eno. The keyboards here typically provide a rudimentary rhythm, baseline tonality, and occasional consonant melody over which the guitars perform various complementary leads, modulating in and out with different tones and effects.

On another album, songs like these would be limited to a few thoughtful, diversionary minutes between more active compositions. On Chicken Noodles, where the concept is stretched to nearly an hour, it’s hard for the listener to maintain interest. While most of the participants’ virtuoso tendencies have been greatly reigned in, the instrumental performances are still a bit too busy for these songs to function as effective soundscapes. It’s as hard to get lost in the ambience due to the omnipresent, ever-mutating leads as it is hard to actively follow these songs due to the hypnotic tempo and simplistic instrumentation.

Chicken Noodles has a pleasant sound though, even if it drones on much longer than I care to listen to it, and fans of ambient music might find some value here. But most folks will find it to be little more than background music at best.