Label: Modigo Records
Release date: June 11, 2019
Production: Ecliptic
Album length: 58.26 min
Genre: Jazz Rock Fusion/Avantgarde/Electronic
Rating: 9.0/10
Buy the album!
Remember June 2019? That’s when Ecliptic dropped their album “The Path Of 01”. In that very same, exceptionally rainy June, Ecliptic also opened the concert evening ahead of the grand finale of last year’s Ljubljana Jazz Festival, warming up the crowd at Križanke in Ljubljana, with the rain as their backing track, before Snarky Puppy took the stage.
A band? Way more than that! This is a crew of serious musical heavyweights, at least by Slovenian scene standards. The five members come from wildly different musical worlds: Jani Moder (guitar), Igor Matkovič (trumpet), Jani Hace (bass guitar), Žiga Kožar (drums) and Murat (vocals, beatbox). What a combo! One quick glance at the quintet’s names and it’s instantly clear that “The Path of 01” is a special kind of musical adventure, and definitely a treat for demanding music gourmets.
This is a jazz-fused musical body, no doubt, where the digital and analog sound principles shake hands. “The Path Of 01” is a one-of-a-kind foldout that fascinates with its looseness and bold jazz adventurism, embodied by an omnipresent team spirit of full-blooded mutual awareness and interplay, with solid chemical bonds between the building blocks of sound. The album boasts eclecticism and keeps feeding the listener lucid levers of musical experimentation at every turn. It combines sonic building blocks in a way that, at first listen, often seems like their mutual tolerance must be utopian. “The Path Of 01” is yet another fascinating release that proves how much tangible, thrilling musical weirdness can be achieved through a remarkably flexible, conciliatory language of highly developed communication, despite the band’s otherwise demanding task. Across this record, the five members build a beautiful and exhilarating symbiotic relationship.
Alongside the traditional approach to integrating guitar, bass and wind instruments, there’s one very important thing to keep in mind: Moder, Matkovič and Hace all keep reaching for tricks, be it electronic sound manipulation or additional sound effects, and they don’t shy away from synthesizing either. Murat’s contribution adds a great extra spice to the band’s expression. Through his fun beatbox shenanigans, the album gains even more dynamics, and the moods in its contrasts hit harder. At the same time, this use of vocals often works as an additional rhythmic instrument. True, Moder and Matkovič occasionally reach for traditional jazz elements, which gives the expression a strong jazz-rock fusion note, reinforced by the outstanding rhythmic dynamics of Hace and Kožar, but the implantation of electronic sound structures is really an equal building block of this lineup’s sonic culture. There are definitely noticeable genre detours on the album, like in Cowboi, which opens up surf-style, or Miss Feather, which starts flirting with world music in its second half and where the band also conjures up a moment of mystique (the calm passage just before the noisy close of the album). The band members also push each other really well. In Saltobeat, Matkovič’s wind lines phrase with longer-held notes, paving the runway for Kožar’s exposé, where he gets a proper workout and cuts loose on the drums. Flashback is the album’s moment where the guitar dominates, as the seasoned Jani Moder steps into the spotlight with his guitar acrobatics.
The crew responds with feeling. They play on instinct. The album gives off a sense of spontaneity, even though interpreting the material this way demands an extraordinary amount of focus, which shines through in the exceptional, filigree-fine sensibility of the mystical Time to Leave the Party. The album unfolds in tune with the axiom “expect the unexpected”. Keep in mind that these are seasoned musicians who don’t play hide-and-seek, so they can afford an extraordinary dose of free-spirited jazz provocation. Musicians like this, loaded with enormous experience, always set the bar for creative self-challenge very, very high. And that kind of free-spirited escapism automatically creates content that’s strictly eclectic in nature. Despite its distinctly experimental focus, this is also an album that’s nicely balanced with tangible phrasing. That gives the otherwise loose compositions just the right amount of compactness.
“The Path Of 01” is a reflection of boundless fun in the studio. It’s an eclectic fusion of high-spirited musical quirkiness and the feat of challenging five musical egos into one perfect musical body, leading the listener through lesser-known, “well-guarded” and still unconquered musical expanses. The quintet’s wide, free-spirited openness to any experiment or “musical prank” guarantees the band will keep intensifying their expressive potential in the future too.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Tracklist:
1. Analog Chief (10:28)
2. Emptiness (02:25)
3. Catcher (E.l.a.) (06:31)
4. Are We Digital? (02:04)
5. Flashback (07:47)
6. Time to Leave the Party (06:11)
7. Saltobeat (10:16)
8. Cowboi (03:03)
9. Miss Feather (09:44)
Lineup:
Jani Moder – guitar, effects
Igor Matković: – trumpet, electronics
Jani Hace – bass guitar, effects
Murat – “beatbox”
Žiga Kožar – drums, effects
