BRZZVLL - Waiho [CD]

Belgian fusion band Brzzvll (pronounced "Brazzaville") present their seventh studio album, Waiho. Founded by Vincent Brijs in Antwerp in 2006, the seven piece interfuse improvised dance music with jazz-fusion, Afro funk, and rare groove. It is freaky, it is trippy and it follows no rules. Belgium has quite a tradition for jazz and funk infused left-field grooves from Marc Moulin's ingenious Placebo, to library funksters Les Chakakas or El Chicles, to the much sampled JJ Band. Brzzvll follows in a similar tradition. Initially re-working arrangements from jazz greats Herbie Hancock, Eddie Harris, Freddie Hubbard, and Archie Shepp, Brzzvll eventually began to construct their own forms of free jazz in an attempt to return jazz to it's primitive roots based around collective improvisation. Waiho is Brzzvll at it's best: excellent psychedelic jazz-funk in which the band's solid, characteristic sound comes forward. After two inspirational collaborations with poets and 'Nuff Said brothers Anthony Joseph ("Engines") and Amir Sulaiman ("First Let's Dance"), Brzzvll play the instrumental card. With Waiho, the band express their current cry for solidarity within music as well as their daily lives. Nowadays, music is too often used as an individual consumption product. The band centralize the group experience, both in the creation process and in the interaction with the audience when performing live, by being "in the moment" and lifting the music to a higher level, as one. This way, Brzzvll go back to the roots of jazz and funk. The non-native electronics and dub effects on the album encourage this heightened mood. The addition of a second drummer provokes an extra percussive layering and virtuosity. The compositions, inspired by surrealism, absurdism, and mysticism, still leave room for improvisation and the collective creation of sound. Get carried away by contagious rhythms and immerse yourself in this delirious trip to a world beyond ours. Picking up numerous plaudits for their contribution to jazz back in Belgium, the band have performed extensively in their home country and have shared the stage with the likes of The Neville Brothers, Young Blood Brass Band, Marcus Miller, and Alice Russell. Comes in four-panel digipak.