When King Crimson's historic violinist meets the quite also historical saxophonist of Van der Graaf Generator, one expects that the result is anything but banal. In addition to his participation in the last three albums of the first generation of King Crimson ("Larks Tongue in Aspic", "Starless and Bible Black" and "Red"), David Cross has not ceased to increase the number of collaborations (with Robert Fripp, John Wetton, Peter Hammill, Clearlight, Jade Warrior, to name a few). David Jackson, in addition to his faithful presence within VDGG from "The Least We Can Do Is Wave To Each Other" (1970) to the live "Real Time" (2007), has collaborated on many albums with Peter Hammill but also with other VDGG defectors (Judge Smith , for the four discs "The Long Hello" with Hugh Banton and Guy Evans) as well as with artists as diverse as Peter Gabriel, Mr Averell, the Italians of Osanna, The Tangent, Jakko Jakszyk (who joined King Crimson since 2013).
The two men had already briefly met in "The Rome Pro(g)ject" I & III, concept albums on which Vincenzo Ricca invited the glories of the 70's prog to play some tracks. This time, it's a real collaboration and not a simple juxtaposition that they do. Accompanied by Mick Paul on bass and Craig Blundell on drums, David & David will delight the listeners with their respective instruments for almost an hour, "Another Day" being unsurprisingly almost entirely dedicated to the violin and the saxophone.
On the menu, some experimental tracks not hesitating to feed on dissonances (considering the pedigree of the protagonists, one would have suspected it) but also some atmospheric pieces and others resolutely melodic. The album opens with a deviant track, 'Predator', with a wobbly and voluntarily grotesque melody on which sax and violin indulge in numerous stridencies on a syncopated rhythmic background. The song will test the nerves of the most sensitive who will also avoid the destructured 'Trane to Kiev' and the cacophonic 'Breaking Bad'. Cacophonous, dissonant, unstructured, even anarchic, but also interpreted at the speed of sound and showing a research that will seduce all those who are not put off by the absence of melodic framework. Cross & Jackson are too skilled to confuse experimental music with boring sound effects.
The two short 'Bushido' and 'Time, Gentlemen, Please' and the more substantial 'Arrival' are pleasant atmospheric breaks without theme but without dissonance. The notes flow almost randomly with a large place left to the improvisations. The whole constitutes a framework as vaporous as intriguing and relaxing. As for the other titles, if some of them are the object of a very precise construction ('Going Nowhere', 'Mr Morose', 'Anthem for Another Day') when others leave large areas to the improvisations between "refrains" (sometimes a bit repetitive) serving as anchor points ('Last Ride', 'Millennium Toll', 'Come Again'), all of them show an obvious melodic research.
Thanks to this alternation between melodies, experimentations and atmospheric pauses, David Cross and David Jackson make a perfectly balanced album, audacious enough to delight the fans of King Crimson and VDGG, wise enough not to frighten those who are less sensitive to the universe of these two bands. Let's add to this that the atmospheres are sometimes joyful, almost dancing, sometimes very dark and worrying and that the four musicians display a virtuosity and a pleasure to play that often lead the listener to a blissful trance, Jackson & Cross intelligently distributing the parts without trying to take the most profit out of it. If the instrumental and some dissonances don't scare you, "Another Day" has everything to make you spend a pleasant moment.