JZ REPLACEMENT - Disrepectful
Rainy Days: Rainy 006CD
Jamie Murray: drums; Zhenya Strigalev: alto sax; Tim Lefebvre: bass guitar, effects.
Recorded March 2019 by George Murphy at Eastcote Studios, London
Murray and Strigalev have been playing as a duet for several years and the opening track, with its highly intricate sax lines being absolutely mirrored by the drums lines shows a pair that are completely in tune and in synch with each. Given this, you might expect the bass lines to be a thing apart. But Lefebvre carves out his space, sometimes muscling into the duet, sometimes providing a thunderous, driving line to cajole and push the others. As such, this trio create music that slips between many genres but which has the exuberance and confrontational swagger that punk had – which might explain the album’s title.
It is probably of little interest or use for my to say that this recording reminds me of the Jah Wobble ‘Human Condition’ cassette recordings from the band he formed immediately leaving PiL – not least because the recordings were made before these three were born and are incredibly difficult to come by. So, why mention this obscure reference? Well, the snakelike sax lines merge with hypnotic bass with a debt to dub reggae in ways that capture that post-punk spirit back in the days before there were labels to define that particular style of music. Which is to say, that same spirit of combining anything and everything permeates this band. Central to this is Murray’s immensely complex drum patterns with rimshots and cymbal edges that precisely follow the sax lines and snap away at the heels of bass lines that have the mix of dub reggae, drum’n’bass and rock (as on the opener, ‘Displacement A’) that characterises several bands on the South London scene. Where JZ Replacement differ from some of these other bands is, I think, in the Murray’s drumming which becomes as much as lead instrument as Strigalev’s sax.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
Rainy Days: Rainy 006CD
Jamie Murray: drums; Zhenya Strigalev: alto sax; Tim Lefebvre: bass guitar, effects.
Recorded March 2019 by George Murphy at Eastcote Studios, London
Murray and Strigalev have been playing as a duet for several years and the opening track, with its highly intricate sax lines being absolutely mirrored by the drums lines shows a pair that are completely in tune and in synch with each. Given this, you might expect the bass lines to be a thing apart. But Lefebvre carves out his space, sometimes muscling into the duet, sometimes providing a thunderous, driving line to cajole and push the others. As such, this trio create music that slips between many genres but which has the exuberance and confrontational swagger that punk had – which might explain the album’s title.
It is probably of little interest or use for my to say that this recording reminds me of the Jah Wobble ‘Human Condition’ cassette recordings from the band he formed immediately leaving PiL – not least because the recordings were made before these three were born and are incredibly difficult to come by. So, why mention this obscure reference? Well, the snakelike sax lines merge with hypnotic bass with a debt to dub reggae in ways that capture that post-punk spirit back in the days before there were labels to define that particular style of music. Which is to say, that same spirit of combining anything and everything permeates this band. Central to this is Murray’s immensely complex drum patterns with rimshots and cymbal edges that precisely follow the sax lines and snap away at the heels of bass lines that have the mix of dub reggae, drum’n’bass and rock (as on the opener, ‘Displacement A’) that characterises several bands on the South London scene. Where JZ Replacement differ from some of these other bands is, I think, in the Murray’s drumming which becomes as much as lead instrument as Strigalev’s sax.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
