Review: Jacob Garchik’s ‘Ye Olde 2: At The End of Time’

Strap yourself in for an exhilarating ride. Trombonist and composer Jacob Carchik’s Ye Olde 2: At the End of Time (Yestereve, 2025) is the follow-up to the first Ye Olde (Yestereve, 2015) from a decade earlier. The older album imagined a band of heroes journeying through an imaginary medieval Brooklyn. For the second voyage, many of the same musicians reunite to travel through the millennia before dueling with themselves at the twilight of the universe. Ye Olde 2: At the End of Time is a jazz-rock odyssey involving nine musicians, six of whom are guitarists. Fret not, there are no more than three guitarists on any track, except in the battle noted below. That should give a clue as to the heady, fun nature of the material. Garchik, an avid reader of books on space, extraterrestrial life, and physics, was influenced here by the sci-fi concept albums of Chick Corea and Lenny White, but takes it to many different levels.

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Don’t get too hung up on the esoteric nature of the following. Simply enjoy it as a fun listening experience, though not for the faint of heart. Longtime collaborator Bodie Chewning does a great job providing a glossary of terms. He also provides a storyline that incorporates the song titles and superhero comic book depictions of the characters who are loosely based on the players on the album. You’ll see references to the Omega Point Theorem, which claims that the universe will eventually contract, leading to a singularity and the resurrection of everyone who ever lived. In the plot of the album, Ye Olde band travels a hundred billion years forward in time, where they encounter the resurrected versions of themselves, a band called “Simulacrus.” After a battle of the bands, Ye Olde is victorious and concludes the album with “Floating Brain,” another concept of far-fetched science that claims we are simulated inside a brain floating in space.

For those listening digitally, the character names may not hold much meaning, but they might for those who have the physical product. This is a cast of premier musicians in creative music:

​YE OLDE (tracks 1-6, 8,9)

Jacob Garchik – the Barrel Maker – trombone

Brandon Seabrook – the Trickling Stream – guitar

Mary Halvorson – the Guardian of the Rock – guitar

Jonathan Goldberger – the Mountain of Gold – guitar, baritone guitar

Vinne Sperrazza – the Merchant of Iron – drums

​SIMULACRUS  (tracks 7,8)

Jacob Garchik – the Barrel Maker – trombone

Ava Mendoza – the Mountain of Ice – guitar

Sean Moran – the Great Chieftain – guitar

Miles Okazaki – the Rocky Headlands – guitar

Josh Dion – the God of Wine and Revelry

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“One Can Only Go Up” is a blurring whirlwind of ascension, as the concept says the foundational note is E, and we can only go up from there. Solos come courtesy of Garchik and Halvorson. While the music rests largely on the ascending scales. But, as you’d expect, it goes out on the edges with most players – including Garchik – using multiple effects. The more cosmic ethereal “Transcending Time” features a guitar solo by Seabrook. Unlike some of these frenzied pieces, this one is filled with gorgeous textures.  “Caro Ortolando” is a brief, triumphant interlude, the liners suggesting it’s a lunch stop to investigate “Exo Microbiology,” where we hear mind-bending solos from Seabrook and Goldberger and “Dyson Speres” from Halvorson. The former is a vibrant, at times dissonant piece that meshes jazz with rock.  “Dyson Spheres,” however, returns to the spacey, cosmic vibe heard in “Transcending Time” with Garchik and his guitarists inserting interruptive phrases. “Von Neumann Probes” is a brief, stormy interlude.

​At this point in the journey, Ye Olde has reached “Omega Point,” the only track on the album where we hear Simulacras alone, a more rock-oriented sextet. The group is still led by Garchik, but imbued wth the wall-shattering guitar solos from Okazaki and Mendoza. Now we are dealing with resurrected beings. We hear both bands squaring off in “Ye Olde vs Simulacrus” with nods to guitarists Moran and Goldberger on the feisty solos amidst the spaceship-like sounds. The music is suitably furious and zany at the same time, with several rhythmic and dynamic shifts. As you’d expect, “Floating Brain,” rendered entirely by Ye Olde, is a mix of the cosmic and the disorienting. This wildly creative music features Garchik layering his trombone against an intense, thick backdrop of guitars and drums, accompanied by a big whoosh of effects, which is heard emphatically to close the program.

​Take the journey. You won’t regret it as long as you are sufficiently prepared.

‘Ye Olde 2: At The End of Time’ will be released on August 29, 2025. It can be purchased on Bandcamp.

Photo credit: Ernest Stuart