Musiconspiracy - Do I The In? (Not Two, 2009) ****

Last year I already wrote admiringly about Polish drummer Jacek Kochan's musical vision for his "One Eyed Horse" album. Now he continues in the same vein with a band called "Musiconspiracy", which also consists of Austrian quartertone trumpeter Franz Hautzinger, Joe Fonda on bass and Norwegian fretless guitarist Tellef Øgrim. The band keeps pushing boundaries, mixing free jazz improvisation with electronics and even fusion at times, to produce a cocktail that is entirely fresh, open-ended and rhythmic. What makes the mix even more incredible is that the four musicians have strong characters, very clearcut ideas about music and about the use of their instruments, but it works beautifully. The band's range is best illustrated by "Feed The Hamster", a piece which starts with snippets of sound, apparently unrelated, yet gradually structure emerges, first in the form of rhythmic patterns, then the thing explodes into an unbelievable orgasm of trumpet wails, supported by high tempo steady drumming and walking bass, and bizarrely enough, with some quiet and solemn, almost religious guitar soloing as backdrop. What genre is this? I don't know. Surely, the music is indebted to the electric Miles Davis, but these four musicians take it a step further, over the boundaries of known endeavors, giving music a new flavor, demonstrating that modern electric jazz with trumpet can be electrifying and rich with ideas, avoiding the blandness of the sentimentalists or cheap commercialists. The music is mysterious, dark, unsettling, exciting, full of contrasts between the known and the unknown, the familiar and the adventurous. Many of the pieces move through different styles, adding experimental moments with more recognisable instrumentation, which does not make this an easy album, yet very unusual and attractive.

Listen to "Feed The Hamster"


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