Album Review:

Jaga Jazzist
One Armed Bandit
Release Date: 25/01/10


In the five years since Jaga’s last LP, What We Must, no band has come close to imitating their sound: schizophrenic progressive electro-jazz with added drum and bass, post-rock, minimalism… and just about every other genre around. The Norwegian collective has defied expectations with One-Armed Bandit – and turned its own style on its head once again. WWM was edgier and placed emphasis on live instrumentation over electronic bleeps and beats, whilst OAB finds a happy medium; in the title track driving drums, cascading horns and a medieval-sounding kalimba interact with a fuzzy synth bassline and psychedelic electronic screeches. As the arpeggiated melody effortlessly passes between instruments, the piece showcases the dazzling array of styles Jaga have swallowed up – drummer and bandleader Lars Horntveth cites Fela Kuti, Wagner and Frank Zappa as heavy influences. Recognisable Jaga textures and timbres are refreshed by an expanded musical repertoire – the grungy synths and glassy, Steve Reich-esque polyrhythms that begin 'Toccata' are later underpinned by a powerful brass refrain and energetic afrobeat drums.

The experimental jazz-rock influence is perhaps most obvious; the title track takes a gasp of breath with an atmospheric guitar slide before launching back into staccato glockenspiel and oozing bass, evoking Zappa’s 'I’m the Slime'. The piece thuds and gallops into a bridge that significantly ups the tempo, racing at breakneck speed towards a thundering climax in which the pass-the-parcel melodies collide in a satisfying and awe-inspiring way. Another highlight is the slow-burning '220 V / Spektral', which opens with a delicate piano trill and muted guitar, immediately shifting to a tense 3/4 section, all reverb and breathy woodwind, before a spacey krautrock chorus. 'Music! Dance! Drama!' recalls 2002’s 'Day', with analog beats, bassline and string plucks mutated by twisted brass, labyrinthine harpsichord and affected guitar.

Jaga Jazzist leads the listener on a tantalising journey through space and time – at times to a completely new, undiscovered planet. It takes a few attempts to keep up with the hundreds of ideas thrown into the album, and it is the sheer ambition poured into each track that will, I suspect, divide audiences. One-Armed Bandit is, like Jaga Jazzist’s earlier work, a musical feast – but as a result it is eccentric and boundary breaking, and its constant framework of excitement-tension-release into further excitement may be unpopular with many. Those who appreciate it will learn to love the album and return, time and time again – finding new dimensions to every track on each occasion.

9/10

By Bengee Gibson

Album Review:

Gil Scott-Heron
I'm New Here
Release Date: 08/02/2010


In the seventeen years since his last record Spirits, Gil Scott-Heron has become a fallen icon of popular music. His socio-political poetry and songs reached out in the 1970s to a generation of disillusioned Americans, his influence spreading through jazz, funk, soul, blues and rap – the latter being a genre he is often accredited with helping to found. It was in prison, serving one of the many drugs-related sentences that have plagued his life, that he was approached by XL owner Richard Russell to record what would become I’m New Here. A 28-minute work comprising four covers, some original monologues and offcuts from recording sessions: this album is, musically and lyrically, a far cry from the protest acid-jazz of his 70s heyday.

Beginning and ending with a two-part tribute to his grandmother, ‘On Coming From a Broken Home’, it is clear that the artist has turned his attention inwards, to the matter of his own demons. There’s further evidence of this shift in the personalised versions of Robert Johnson’s ‘Me and the Devil’ and Bobby Bland’s ‘I’ll Take Care of You’, the one transformed into a trip-hop stomper pierced by Scott-Heron’s roaring, audibly ravaged voice; the other seeing him revive his famous baritone for a more familiar-sounding soulful ballad. The latter of these two particularly stands out. Sparse instrumentation – kick drum, vibrato strings and piano – introduce a weary, pained voice that can’t fail to stir a sublime nostalgia in the listener. Another key musical offering is ‘New York is Killing Me’, in which the album’s glitchy and otherwise gloomy ambience is complemented by handclaps, cymbal crashes and a gospel choir. It is unlike anything Scott-Heron has ever done, and is all the more rewarding for it; his voice is being treated in new ways, in new contexts.

Throughout the album, we find Scott-Heron in especially meditative and unforgiving mood; but whilst pieces such as ‘The Crutch’ are memorable as showcases for Scott-Heron’s unique poetic talents, their arrangements are uninspiring and, frankly, overbearing. Worse still, stripping away the electronic arrangements conceivably leaves us with the mere bare bones of an album: excerpts from Scott-Heron’s writings, rehashes of old ideas (‘Your Soul and Mine’) and a few successful re-workings of others’ songs. As a whole, it feels neither satisfactory nor satisfying. Here’s hoping this album will mark the resurgence of Scott-Heron’s career. It should not, however, be celebrated as a true return to prominence.

6/10

By Bengee Gibson