The Sixth of the Eight New Goldberg Albums

Cover of the album being discussed (from its Bandcamp Web page)

The title of the sixth album in clarinetist Ben Goldberg’s 8 Albums on August 8 releases is Optical. I am not sure what he had in mind in assigning this title. My current conjecture is that it involves a visual account of the track listing:

1. Material
2. Materialize
3. Dematerialize
4. Rematerialize
5. Materialization
6. Dematerialization
7. Rematerialization
8. Materializationalism
9. Dematerializationalism
10. Rematerializationalsm
11. Materializationialsm Ah Um
12. Dematerializationalism Ah Um
13. Rematerializationalism Ah Um

That said, as is the case for all of the other albums in this collection, the auditory is far more significant than the visual. This is a trio album with Goldberg accompanied by Will Bernard on electric guitar and Hamir Atwal on drums. I am not sure whether there is any sense of “progression” in the listening process. However, unless I am mistaken, Goldberg saved the “punch line” for the final track, which includes a brief interjection of the primary theme from Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Flight of the Bumblebee,” an orchestral interlude for the opera he composed entitled The Tale of Tsar Saltan. (Yes, that also showed up in Goldberg’s fifth album, Dreaming Upon Waking. Rimsky-Korsakov’s ghost must be feeling pretty smug these days!)

His own account of the album is as follows:

Since I can never get enough of Will’s guitar playing or Hamir Atwal’s drumming, I pulled them both into the studio one sweaty Brooklyn afternoon in the summer of 2025. This is what happened.

I was in elementary school when I was living in Brooklyn, now many decades in the past. My more recent visits to the borough have involved performances at the Brooklyn Academy of Music during the concert season (and even those are now part of my past). Any encounters with Goldberg have taken place in San Francisco (also some distance in the past).

That said, I appreciate the diversity that I have encountered in his albums; and I enjoyed the fact that this one allowed me to have a bit of fun!