Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Cassette Review: Massola "Neanderthal Jazz" (obsedante! recs.)


[€4 // Edition of 60 // https://obsedante.bandcamp.com/album/obs-17-neanderthal-jazz // http://www.obsedante.blogspot.com/]

By the title of this cassette alone you can guess that it will sound like jazz on some level, but you will not be able to conceive just how much it sounds like jazz without listening to it, possibly even several times.

The first side is full of drum spasms that are cymbal heavy.   There are horns for sure, but it somehow also sounds like jazz flute to me even if there wasn't any flute involved.   The whole vibe is that of the freestyle jazz that I like to know as "jazz noise" but still think is kind of a dumb tag to use.
       You have to imagine- in order to grasp this side- that someone took a jazz recording and played it at a standard tempo for a normal length.   Then imagine Massola coming in and taking this piece, stopping it and starting it at will as well as speeding up the tempo of it.   Granted, this would not really be possible because speeding up the tempo would have it sounding like The Chipmunks and this flows so well.  

On Side B we have more growling in the vocals (there was a little bit on A, but only a little bit) and this just overall comes out a lot faster and heavier.   It reminds me of something like The Locust, which covers a lot of ground sure but I also feel as if the first side was building up to it.    Additionally, my almost three year old son couldn't help but dance around the living room and jump around on the couch as this one played.

While this might not be traditional jazz by any stretch of the imagination, it is definitely worth listening to if you're a fan of jazz or, um, just about anything really.









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