Electronic Sound July 2015 (Regular Edition) | Page 34

ALBUM REVIEWS

from Martin Horntveth, jangly guitars,
ethereal flute hooks (try not to think of
Ron Burgundy, however tempting that
might be) and astral synths, it feels like
it’s arrived through a time portal from
some deeply unfashionable wormhole.

JAGA JAZZIST
Starfire

NINJA TUNE

Third album from Londoner James
Mathé is a real cerebral charmer
Fusion music has always had a bad rep.
In the wake of Miles Davis’ 1970s electric
experiments, whole swathes of records
were castigated by purists for trying to
push the envelope just that little bit
too far. In hindsight, those clashes of
styles – jazz with rock, jazz with funk,
jazz with electronic ornamentation –
were bold and inventive (but ultimately
misunderstood) attempts to elevate the
genre out of a traditionalist cul-de-sac.

Evocative and quite beautiful it might
be, but the main draw of ‘Shinkasen’
is the abrupt left turn at the halfway
mark into a chunky, robotic passage that
owes more to Autechre or electronic dub
than jazz, all springy synth splinters and
whining melodies, before looping back
round to more or less where it started.
It’s a technique that dominates this
album, whether that be in the form of
an extended and utterly unprecedented
slick electro interlude (‘Oban’), or a
sharp flip into a potential soundtrack for
some fiendishly clever cyber-hack thriller
(‘Starfire’), or just a general feeling of
advanced sonic mixology at work.
The biggest departure from the formula,
simply because of the sheer number of
sudden directional shifts, is ‘Big City
Music’. The least “loose” of the tracks

here, it feels like a late-night cab ride
through the vibrant and often dangerous
urban topography of Philip K Dick’s
imagination. Among the spiralling, grainy
sounds, there’s a sense of motion and
an unseen threat thanks to faltering
handclaps that could well be gunshots.
There are also more serene elements –
acoustic guitars, melodic synth shimmers
straight out of ‘Neon Lights’, drum cycles
that offer rapturous abandon, and a
prowling bassline. At one junction, we
find ourselves in a dreamlike big band
concert, only to hit a euphoric, angelic
choir at the next, quickly replaced by a
classical quartet, then a malfunctioning
fax machine, and so on.
If it sounds like a sprawling mess of a
record, that’s because it is, and what’s
more it’s all the better for it. The trick
with Jaga Jazzist is their capacity to
unearth a credible narrative out of chaos,
deploying a sense of musical adventure
that confirms fusion isn’t such a terrible
thing after all.
MAT SMITH

Formed by Martin Horntveth and his
brother Lars in 1994, Oslo’s Jaga Jazzist
have spent two decades blazing a trail
without any heed whatsoever for fusion’s
lack of critical appreciation. The group’s
distinctive, playful tracks sit somewhere
between retro-futurism and funkembossed 70s authenticity, giving rise to
the notion that this could be the Tatooine
Cantina house band from ‘Star Wars
Episode IV’ during a post-work free-form
jam session.
On ‘Starfire’, Jaga Jazzist’s fifth studio
album, the centrepiece of this continued
journey into musical collisions is
‘Shinkasen’. Built on muscular drumming

Pic: Anthony Huus