AMOR AMOK – We Know Not What We Do
Intakt: Intakt CD279
Christian Lillinger: drums; Petter Eldh: Wanja Slavin: saxophone; Peter Evans: trumpet.
Recorded: Studio H2, Berlin, May 2016.
From the opening burst of the ‘Pulsar’ (track 1), you know you’re in for an exciting but bumpy ride. Here is a quartet that revisits the wildness of classic ‘60s free jazz but imbues it with modern sensibilities. They take the idea of quite simple heads, repeated and rephrased over the piece, and the antagonistic duelling of a saxophone / trumpet frontline and then mix this with a rhythmic accompaniment that owes as much to left-field ‘math rock’ as it does jazz. The result is a musical experience that, just as you think you’ve got the measure of it, shifts and splinters away from you. This is free jazz that makes the listener work hard to keep up with it, but which provides rich rewards and endless fascination. Much of the pleasure comes from hearing the band completely dismantle a theme so that it feels as if they have nowhere left to go and then, miraculously, rebuild it without so much as losing step. This sort of on-the-edge-a-cliff improvising (although each piece has composition credits) takes tremendous control and a huge level of understanding within the band.
Just when you think you’ve got their measure as a hot improv unit, they also turn in a couple of pieces which push in completely different directions. ‘Alan Shorter’ (track 4) is a slow piece of sustained notes over a cymbal ‘tune’ which gives a feel of the music of the trumpeter to whom the piece is dedicated. ‘The New Portal’ (track 7) is a gleeful take on the vogue for skitterish post-bop rhythms, and ‘Jazzfriendship’ (track 8) has a vibe that feels like a modern big band (albeit one heard through a radio that keeps slipping to and fro between stations). The closing track, ‘A run through the neoliberalism’ (worth mentioning for the title alone), returns the band to the broad brushed free jazz that takes us back to the ‘60s. As the liner notes put it ‘Every new thing becomes old in time, and then some become new again.” Here is a band that has taken an older musical style and completely reinvigorated it. I’d like to think that this CD will become a classic of free jazz.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
Intakt: Intakt CD279
Christian Lillinger: drums; Petter Eldh: Wanja Slavin: saxophone; Peter Evans: trumpet.
Recorded: Studio H2, Berlin, May 2016.
From the opening burst of the ‘Pulsar’ (track 1), you know you’re in for an exciting but bumpy ride. Here is a quartet that revisits the wildness of classic ‘60s free jazz but imbues it with modern sensibilities. They take the idea of quite simple heads, repeated and rephrased over the piece, and the antagonistic duelling of a saxophone / trumpet frontline and then mix this with a rhythmic accompaniment that owes as much to left-field ‘math rock’ as it does jazz. The result is a musical experience that, just as you think you’ve got the measure of it, shifts and splinters away from you. This is free jazz that makes the listener work hard to keep up with it, but which provides rich rewards and endless fascination. Much of the pleasure comes from hearing the band completely dismantle a theme so that it feels as if they have nowhere left to go and then, miraculously, rebuild it without so much as losing step. This sort of on-the-edge-a-cliff improvising (although each piece has composition credits) takes tremendous control and a huge level of understanding within the band.
Just when you think you’ve got their measure as a hot improv unit, they also turn in a couple of pieces which push in completely different directions. ‘Alan Shorter’ (track 4) is a slow piece of sustained notes over a cymbal ‘tune’ which gives a feel of the music of the trumpeter to whom the piece is dedicated. ‘The New Portal’ (track 7) is a gleeful take on the vogue for skitterish post-bop rhythms, and ‘Jazzfriendship’ (track 8) has a vibe that feels like a modern big band (albeit one heard through a radio that keeps slipping to and fro between stations). The closing track, ‘A run through the neoliberalism’ (worth mentioning for the title alone), returns the band to the broad brushed free jazz that takes us back to the ‘60s. As the liner notes put it ‘Every new thing becomes old in time, and then some become new again.” Here is a band that has taken an older musical style and completely reinvigorated it. I’d like to think that this CD will become a classic of free jazz.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
