Das aus Arve Henriksen, Teun Verbruggen, Jozef Dumoulin und Stian Westerhus bestehende Improv-Quartett bringt fünf Jahre nach dem Studioalbum “Lomahongva” eine Live-Aufnahme aus dem Amsterdamer Kuturzentrum Bimhuis heraus. Mit einem soliden Instrumentarium (Trompete, Elektroni, Gitarre, Fender Rhodes, Drums, Vocals, Effekte) erteilen die Musiker in dieser Performance allen gängigen Genre-Erwartungen eine Absage und bringen ein unberechenbares, schwindelerregendes Klanglabyrinth auf die Beine, das immer wieder Fährten in bekannte Richtungen legt, um am Ende doch wieder in ganz andere Terrains abzubiegen. Das Album erscheint als LP und CD bei Consouling Sounds.
“It shouldn’t surprise anyone that these four are capable of concocting such a mindfuck of a record. Teun Verbruggen and Jozef Dumoulin are partners in a long series of bands/projects – among them the international Bureau of Atomic Tourism and a lauded collaboration with Keiji Haino – that verge towards the experimental side of Belgian jazz and improvised music. They are restless seekers, both familiar with the tradition and eager to cross into unknown territory. Of course, the same can be said about their Norwegian counterparts, Arve Henriksen and Stian Westerhus. Firmly rooted in the avant-garde and improvisation scenes of their homeland, both artists can look back on a discography that is iridescent, betrays an uncanny depth and is defined by a similar urge to discover new projections of sounds and ideas. In Verbruggen and Dumoulin, they have found brothers that speak the same language. They move around each other in constantly changing constellations.
In 2016, the quartet played a highly praised concert at the Moers Festival, but this performance from the same week at the Bimhuis in Amsterdam is as impressive. The recording is barely 40 minutes long, but contains enough ideas to keep most other artists going for weeks. This is an example of genre-defying artists giving you a taste of utter and complete madness while displaying a masterful command of sound, texture and dynamics. Key ingredients: manipulation, accumulation, variation. The core is rather traditional – trumpet, guitar, keyboards drums – but the execution couldn’t be any less predictable. By using a dazzling variety of electronics and effects, the band creates extended soundscapes that move from subdued, ethereal moments to dense, intergalactic trips that introduce you to new post-industrial worlds with an almost physical, frightening intensity. And it is in these movements, these transformations between intricately detailed and carefully constructed temperaments, that the band shines at its brightest. The result is what happens when arcade madness and a boiling mass of sound make place for plundering schizophrenics, when the cerebral and the visceral collide, when dizzying fragmentation is pushed forward with an unstoppable thrust. (Consouling Sounds)