Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Jazoo
Label: Celinka
Release: 2016
Runtime: 62:32
Rating: 4.5/5
Long-running Slovenj Gradec ethno-jazz fusionists Jazoo gave birth to their sixth studio album, »Destinations«, at the end of last September. Heaven knows why our copy wandered toward the editorial office for so long, but better late than never. On the Slovenian scene, Jazoo are a thoroughly established outfit with an experimentally probing art format, one that keeps rewarding music connoisseurs, that crowd of listeners who love more complex »musical tales«. It’s always been that way. A band that doesn’t know »standing still« and won’t admit to it, a band forever in motion, with its reason for existing written into constant musical change. That’s why Jazoo’s music is always worth writing about. Plain and simple. Because listening to it pays off big time.
With their previous album, »Back to Reality«, the band took what was in fact a necessary step on the road to »Destinations«. The songs keep their longer running times, while the arrangements have grown into a musical landscape that, for all its multilayered movement, feels even tighter, almost fully optimized. »Destinations« is really an upgrade of its predecessor’s musical statement, with one distinct difference in its homegrown evolution: it brings a greater degree of thematic definition (clarity), and at the same time it’s fascinating to realize that on this very album the band managed to strike an excellent balance between musically virtuous structure and the freewheeling challenge of experiment, which has always given Jazoo’s image that touch of eclecticism. Something you could occasionally miss when the conversation turned to the otherwise lovely, ambitious and bold predecessor, »Back to Reality«.
When it comes to the »expression« of their own musical artistry, Jazoo serve up mature craftsmanship on the new album. They’ve delivered an album of gorgeous balances, where no single element dominates and everything coexists in a tolerant dialogue of musical pragmatism (e.g. the flute, sax and keys chatting in the middle section of Rain Water). The wealth of ideas, which brings a varied battalion of lead (clearly defined) motifs, is dosed with the expected pinch of experimental improvisational flair, but it speaks to you throughout in a way that keeps the album, as a whole, wonderfully listenable. There’s not a moment when it slips into the expressive »chaos« that the ego of the band members’ improvisational fantasies might (potentially) dictate. This time that ego is cunningly kept on a leash of adapting to the lead motifs. Even when the saxophone takes the solo initiative, then the percussion, then the piano, the band returns with incredible skill to phrasing the lead motifs. Let’s put it simply: »Destinations« is a »just right« kind of album. Given that the songs are long again, not for a second do they give the feeling that the quintet is sliding into stretches of featureless dryness, the kind that can create a sense of »not being lived in« or »black spots with no real moment of expressive inspiration«. This time the multiple repetition of motifs (generated mostly by the keys, backed by cleverly added programmed effects, e.g. the exit of the excellent opener Nomades), (occasionally deliberate), works exactly as it should, building up moods. They grab you effectively across the album, and as a result it also delivers a very welcome dose of mystique. The ethno element is laid especially bare in E Space, where the band slyly hangs out with some »arabesques« too.
As the album’s title already suggests, it works like a kind of hitchhiker through the band’s musical expanses. Jazoo don’t reveal them right away; they address you with a sense of theatrical spontaneity and a moment of unexpected twists, build on the concept of strong moods, and the many layers of glued-together motifs keep the record dynamic at all times. Plain and simple. Take, for instance, the gradual shift of an »orientally« tinted motif into a fully neoclassical one, a good minute and a half before the end of E Space, with Jazoo never losing the red thread of the song’s listenable framework. Each of the tracks offers a trip of cerebral rapture, whether it’s a journey with the nomads (say, over to the Eskimos, well, Zappa himself was a big fan of »huskies«), or an invitation to »dance« with the rain, and among other things you’ll also get to the real truth about the Moon landing.
»Destinations« is a new step up for the band. Measured with maturity. The product of homegrown evolution. It delivers a new chapter in the band’s musical individuality, one that couldn’t care less about genre boundaries and follows nothing but its own instincts and its own imaginary world. The sensibility of the musicians, who recorded this album in the spirit of a live performance, stays exceptional. The band has delivered an album with an optimal dialogue between musical experiment and broadly listenable formatting. A record of great artistic value, and not just, superficially speaking, an upgrade of its predecessor »Back to Reality«, but also a reflection of the superbly functioning chemistry among the members of the Jazoo crew, which doesn’t happen overnight. The band has nurtured that chemistry carefully and persistently for over two decades, into a unique musical conglomerate of all-round singularity. Along the path of healthy, natural and independently homegrown evolution. In this respect, »Destinations« reaches the band’s creative zenith. Given the inspiration, fire and heart it brings, there’s no fear that Jazoo won’t hold on to that zenith in the future too.
Jazoo – Nomades (official audio):
Lineup
Tomaž Pačnik – piano, keyboards, accordion
Matjaž Mlakar – saxophones, clarinet, electronics
Nejc Haberman – bass guitar
Katja Stare – flute, saxophone, vocals, percussion
Danijel Hartman – drums
Production
Gabriel & Jadran Ogrin
Tracklist
1. Nomades
2. E Space
3. Rain Water
4. Somedays
5. Land-Escapes
6. Distance
7. A True Story About Landing On the Moon
