Music Consumer Guide by Kyle Gann

ROVA Saxophone Quartet: This TIme We Are Both (New Albion) They've lost some edge as they've gotten slicker, but the ROVA sax quartet still boasts a tuneful/abstract dialectic that no other improv group can match. In this disc of their last Soviet tour, they show how to riff off a theme, but I like them best when they veer away from jazz without telling you where they're going. In Torque, their splintered lines weave together like arcs in a Pollock drip painting. In The Freedom of Information, they free themselves from sax idiosyncrasies, interlocking in sustained tones that might be violins or clarinets. And in What Was Lost Regained, they evolve a thick, complex texture from within for minute after minute without losing the thread. B PLUS

Typed by Cheryl Vega 5-18-95