Matt Tecu + Fernando Perdomo: Getting Warmer

Multi-instrumentalists Matt Tecu Fernando Perdomo have switched places on the credits of their new album Getting Warmer, as if to indicate they are equal partners once more on the follow-up for their debut release Art. Both them are in demand musicians in LA, who can play pretty much anything, but having an outlet for their own music every now and then can be liberating.

The ten tracks are smooth and sometimes blatantly sexy, taking cues for late night funk and sophisticated jazz. It is not muzak, although it comes close it, but that is by design. The music undulates like silk sheets wrapped around a couple going at it, with some rougher patches to indicate that things are getting really hot and steamy.

Fernando Perdomo + Matt Tecu: Art

Give two virtuosos a free reign and one of two things will happen: excessive noodling of the "look-mom-no hands" variety or locking into a groove, listen carefully to each other, and create something that is bigger than the sum of its parts. Fernando Perdomo (guitar, bass, keys, Mellotron) and Matt Tecu (drums, percussion, voice, acoustic guitar) had the audacity to call their collaborative album Art, but they pulled it off with a collection of progressive fusion tracks, mixing rock and jazz, tailor made for independent movies set in a sun beat environment.

Perdomo and Tecu both can hand over an impressive resume, which landed them jobs with high profile artists. This album shows their compositional skills, without the pressure of an outside A&R guy or producer breathing down their neck. The tracks on Art soar and fly. Fingers crossed it lands on a desk of an exec who will ask nothing, safe to go back to the studio and record a follow-up asap, with his company picking up the tab. There is no such thing as too much of good thing.