Tag Archives: fusion

Bambino dell’Oro – Los Belvos

by Deidre House

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Oxford, UK’s progressive fusion duo Bambino dell’Oro‘s latest album Los Belvos is a set of sumptuously textured modern jazz pieces underlaid by complex grooves. The core of the band is made up by two multi-instrumentalists specializing on drums and piano/keyboard respectively, but they also have a bassist with them most of the time and occasionally a soprano sax player as well on this release.

The album’s overall feel is energetic, effortlessly flowing between odd time signatures that are given time to breathe without overstaying their welcome. They make strategic use of a wide texural palette including instruments such as … Read more

Sha’s Feckel – Feckel for Lovers

by Deidre House

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Reed player Sha has made a name for himself over the years among fans of the Swiss “zen funk groove” school of jazz pioneered by Nik Bärtsch and Don Li among others. The full-length debut from his project Sha’s Feckel, Feckel for Lovers, is a diverse and dynamic set of heavy jazz fusion tunes. Featuring Sha on sax together with a guitar, bass, and drums trio, this group weaves huge riffs with odd grooves within engaging and thoroughly fearless compositions.

The album starts out with “A,” a 13 minute piece that gradually crescendos from somber, pensive fusion to … Read more

Panzerballett – Breaking Brain

by Deidre House

Munich, Germany’s Panzerballett has been one of my favorite bands for some time now. Merging the intricate brutality of progressive metal with the grace and elegance of modern jazz together with a dash of German humor and a healthy awareness of how bizarre this combination is, they are in my opinion one of the most original and virtuosic bands active at this time. Their fifth full length album, Breaking Brain, sufficiently expands on the formula that they’ve developed over the years and manages to meet my high expectations yet again.

Featuring a sax player in what would otherwise be … Read more

Glass Skies – A Nature of Sorts

by Dæv Tremblay

a3893934811_16Glass Skies is a UK-based one-man band by Oscar, active since at least 2014, according to bandcamp releases. A Nature of Sorts is his first actual release, if we don’t count three singles and a backing track mini-EP.

His debut EP is a 5-song, 18-minute listen that adds a few djent elements to an otherwise jazz fusion sound, which is, for the most part, pretty laid back and contemplative but still instrumentally interesting. On that point, there is a little extended instrumentation that is fun to listen to: stuff like xylophone on Nice Monster and piano on the title track, … Read more

Thieves’ Kitchen – Clockwork Universe

by Deidre House

Prog rockers Thieves’ Kitchen hail from the UK and Sweden. Their sixth full-length album,  The Clockwork Universe, charts a course through spacetime to a destination somewhere in 1970s Canterbury, UK. The jazz and folk infused style of progressive rock particular to this spacetime neighborhood, rather than being an obsolete relic of the past, still boasts untapped veins of creative gold. Along the journey, we’re treated to a sprawling 20 minute prog epic, as well as a couple instrumental and percussion-less tracks that sound more like contemporary classical chamber music than any kind of … Read more