Artist: Line Out
Label: Ammonite Records
Release: 2009
Duration: 45:42
Rating: 4.5/5
Line Out are an eight-piece band from Sombor, Serbia. Their music is definitely a multilayered fusion of all sorts of musical directions. Still, at their core Line Out stay rooted in building on simple, solid, flirtatiously seductive rhythms that lean on funk basics or “seventies disco” moves (Games Games, Summernight Delirium, Crosswords). They also love to flirt every now and then with elements of dub and reggae. But good luck stuffing them into any one box, because the debut serves up 11 different tracks of Line Out’s musical vision.
The female vocal is just right, especially when it brings a tasteful touch of soul improvisation, which Jovana definitely doesn’t lack. This is a voice with real fire and charisma that leaves the expressive mark you want when you listen. It never feels annoying, pushy or syrupy.
Line Out build their sonic foldout on woven layers of wind instruments (tasty additions in Crosswords, or in the opening Games Games, which effectively kicks the album off into a flirty “groove”), which talk beautifully with clean (to mildly crunchy) wah-wah guitar or clear chords driven by confident “reverb” swells (Lisa Sinking Down). Dub Mesh offers an interesting moment built from old-school guitar sounds embracing each other, but steered into typical “dub” echoes, and it follows the catchy Crossroads, which could easily land on one of Jamiroquai’s early albums. Dub Mesh is an example of a track that caught a bit of spontaneous playing and unfolds with a streak of unpredictability. Here the band ramps up a “juicy” weave of all the building blocks, round after round, creating a lively, ever-shifting track.
In Lisa Sinking Down, for example, the band proves how strong and convincing they are in rhythm. It’s hard to predict where the groove will twist next, yet it stays compact the whole way and never falls apart into fragments, so there’s no talk of “progressive” with Line Out. A mix of dub reggae combinations, where an expressive female vocal grabs all the attention amid the constant, compact melodicism of clearly showcased lead motifs, makes My Sunshine the ideal candidate for a “hit single” release. It’s a masterful combination of playful guitar cynicism in the pre-chorus and the effective embrace of the wind section in the chorus, both of which keep supporting the “Jamaican” English in the verses. It’s a track with a special character, a special temperament.
Line Out are a band that works in a minimalist way with their ideas. But since there’s more than one idea, they of course stack them together. And they do it with great compatibility and finesse. That’s how they build a tasty, succulent picture. Since you won’t find any distorted riff-fest across the album, the warm bass line is successfully pushed to the front. That matters all the more with Line Out, because the bass lines are melodic, constantly active and exploring. This lifts the whole picture and gives it a clear sense of dynamics, as well as organic feel (realness). Yes. Line Out swear by natural sound. Not only did they masterfully put the lead, highly melodic and listenable lead motifs front and center in tracks that string together concision and compactness, they also kept the production alive, fresh, with a high touch of genuine and totally natural playing, which is a must for expressing your own authorial core, on the creative side, and that in turn brings you a recognizable and unique identity, the thing that makes the music crowd discover you and remember you.
Line Out have the charge, they’re masters, they know what they’re doing and what they want. This is a band you absolutely have to see live. The type of music they cultivate depends heavily on a precise and compact rhythm line that pushes heads and bodies all by themselves into a higher gear of kinetics, and it only fully comes alive on stage. You can feel that the musicians on the team are very experienced! They show at least a hint of an improvisational streak throughout that leans toward the basics of jazz, but they keep that power of expression under control the whole time and never force it into the foreground. Everything is subordinated to high listenability and keeping the individual tracks compact. Line Out are also very strong at creating a rich atmosphere. That’s how they manage to build a powerful melancholic moment, unique on the album, in the calmer Midnight Stalker (with an intoxicating backdrop curtain created by the simple violin). Sudden Song, which is also calmer, gives the octet tons of room for expressive depth, and they use it to the fullest. It stands on the full, voluminous “groove” of an active rhythm line (drums and bass), into which experimental guitar tasting eats its way, fanned by the female vocal, with a few outbursts of psychedelia. But it’s listenable the whole way through, and that makes it all the more thrillingly attractive!
Reviews of albums like this are the hardest. Usually you run out of words when you follow the musical expression of albums like “Master Piece.” Whether it’s truly a masterpiece, time will tell. All I can say is that this is an excellent album, packed with dynamics and cleverly shaped ideas that talk to your ears beautifully and push your body into the rhetoric of dance moves, without hiding a touch of eroticism. Minimalisms merged into a full, “juicy” spectral picture, with excellent vocal expression on top of everything and the unfailingly playful “funky groove” underbelly of the rhythm line. Something the old-timers of the funk bible, from Stevie Wonder to Glenn Hughes, should hear. With their debut, Line Out have delivered an album of exceptional rhetoric that’s retro-oriented, yet at the same time offers a dash of avant-garde-leaning character, placing the band in the field of much-needed recognizability, with a uniquely personal stamp. Line Out are a young band charged with creative inspiration, well worth putting under the microscope at every moment and keeping a close eye on in the future too! On “Master Piece,” it’s hard to single out the album’s highlights. Every track is a self-contained story that gives the listener fresh excitement, a reason to explore, and an adventure into the expressive musical core of Line Out.
Lineup
Jovana Đurović – vocals
Zoltan Kiš – guitar
Boris Golub – guitar
Dragoslav Mitrović – saxophone
Tomislav Barak – trumpet
Miloš Čekić – VJ master
Milan Đurđević – bass guitar
Vladimir Koprivica – drums
GUEST MUSICIANS:
Petar Sopot – vocals on track no. 6
Milica – violin on track no. 4
Branislava Bošnjak – backing vocals
Production
Aleksandar Vaci
Tracklist
1. Games Games
2. My Sunshine
3. Summernight Delirium
4. Midnight Stalker
5. Crosswords
6. Dream Prelude
7. My World
8. Dub Mesh
9. Sudden Song
10. Lisa Sinking Down
11. Master-piece
