Vertigo was the first group I had that played all my own music. I had some ideas about this funky instrumentation — trombone, acoustic guitar, cello, clarinet — that I wanted to explore. In my head was that album by Louis Sclavis, Acoustic Quartet, but for whatever reason, in contrast to that work, most of Vertigo’s music ended up being really moody, in some cases almost ambient (and sometimes deceptively hard to play!).
I think the music stands up really well. I listened to it again recently, some 8 years after the fact, and sure there are some things I’d do differently but for the most part I still like it a lot, and I think it works.
The album is still available on Present Sounds Recordings, but the link appears to be broken, so here’s the CDBaby direct link: