Customer Reviews

Livingroom Hush

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

What is happening in Norway? Following on from Bugge Wesseltoft's "New Conceptions of Jazz" releases comes this even better CD that really does expand the horizons of where jazz is in 2002! From its stand-out opening number - "Animal Chin", with its driving "drum & bass" back-beats and wonderfully "frantic" but controlled multi-layered riffs - the whole album just rolls along through a series of superbly played, tightly structured and often highly innovative tracks. Fusing the rhythms & break sequences used by club DJ's, new wave electronica and the chord progressions of "traditional" modern jazz, "A Living Room Hush" is that rarest of things: an album that dares to push itself beyond accepted boundaries while remaining totally listenable to.

Good enough to stand comparison to Weather Report's & The Mahavishnu Orchestra's similarly ground-breaking "cross-over" explorations in the 1970's, but devoid of their jarring excesses, Jaga Jazzist's first outing will challenge you and then insidiously etch itself into your memory banks to demand repeat listening. Having, justifiably, received "rave" reviews on its, initially restricted, local release this album now sits here waiting for you to discover it. If you really do want to know - and enjoy - where creative new jazz is going look no further!

Jaga Jazzist's album 'Livingroom Hush' is for those who are interested in
new complicated sound forms coming from the North. It is a true challenge. Born
by passionate overdeveloped minds and cleverly designed to take the neophyte
ones to a new level.

Not exactly hushed, as you might expect. It gathers both live instrumental acts with
advanced programming that makes it quite an experience for the listener.

Jaga's music is absolutely organic. Very rhythmic, very original, very complex. It's excitingly jazzy and
experimental. Bass clarinets give an unforgettable shape and form of it all. The drums offer to you
a true feast. Coming a long way from Norway, Jaga Jazzist's experimental act is definitely one of the
boldest Ninja Tune recruits.

Muscular, brainy and daring.

Killer tracks: Animal Chin, Midget.
Personal Favourites: Airborne, Low Battery, Lithuania.

What is happening in Norway? Following on from Bugge Wesseltoft's "New Conceptions of Jazz" releases comes this even better CD that really does expand the horizons of where jazz is in 2002! From its stand-out opening number - "Animal Chin", with its driving "drum & bass" back-beats and wonderfully "frantic" but controlled multi-layered riffs - the whole album just rolls along through a series of superbly played, tightly structured and often highly innovative tracks. Fusing the rhythms & break sequences used by club DJ's, new wave electronica and the chord progressions of "traditional" modern jazz, "A Living Room Hush" is that rarest of things: an album that dares to push itself beyond accepted boundaries while remaining totally listenable to.

Good enough to stand comparison to Weather Report's & The Mahavishnu Orchestra's similarly ground-breaking "cross-over" explorations in the 1970's, but devoid of their jarring excesses, Jaga Jazzist's first outing will challenge you and then insidiously etch itself into your memory banks to demand repeat listening. Having, justifiably, received "rave" reviews on its, initially restricted, local release this album now sits here waiting for you to discover it. If you really do want to know - and enjoy - where creative new jazz is going look no further!

3 1/2

Continuing to mine an assured fusion of jazz and electronic sentiment, A Livingroom Hush presents a more laid back approach to dabbling with these hybrid structures. Maybe against the unit's best intentions, the majority of relaxed, though complex songs do rob a certain urgency present in the groups finer moments. While certainly not slacking in this more downtempo approach, the few fast-burning, melodically brilliant tracks such as the misleading opener definitely slap some of the affectionate lethargy starting to creep in over the more experimental, toothless forays. Where they are not trying to gently coast upon some beat-infested repetition, (coming across a less musically inclined, more dj-worthy approach like Bonobo) the Jazzist's are still managing to melodically innovate more effectively then most experimental, horn-based groups.

This is a great cd.Each track with it's own style and rythm.The jagga jazzist remind me somewhat of stereolab with a little jazz added.Great chillout cd for your collection.

One thing for sure; Jaga Jazzist's sound draws influences froms the whole. From Eric Satie, Soft Machine and Stereolab to citing My Bloody Valentine, Radiohead and Bjork as important influences. Jaga jazzist creates a no- boundary hypnotic music that is reminiscent of the ever blossoming 1960's Norwegian jazz scene.

This stuff is absolutely exciting. A Livingroom Hush must be one of the best nu jazz records I've heard. And hey, I just found out that there is a new record coming out! Don't miss this.

Very exciting album and the band is thrilling live as well. Recent discovery, now my favorite new band. Hopefully coming to the States soon???

The name Jaga Jazzist, big band from Norway formed in 1995, even if quite unknown to many is beginning to circulate in Italy and in the rest of Europe too, after the band had a high reputation in its homeland. Members of the large group of innovative musicians coming from the Scandinavian countries, these ten guys from Tønsberg, a town near Oslo, represent in my opinion the perfect synthesis of which I dare to define - more to joke than for a real will to cataloguing - "trip-electro-jazz", without any fear to apply the word "jazz", used often as a kind of totem, to the offer of this group.
And it's really difficult to give a placing to Jaga Jazzist which show to be untied from the different musical tendencies, or to say better to be able to take peculiarities, spurs, ideas and technologies from each one of them and to merge them together: so drum&bass, bitter and violent post-rock guitars, ambient-music digital sounds, dance lightness derived from nu-jazz (movement which someone would like to approach them to, but to which they go beyond), typical acoustic sonorities of "traditional" jazz, are all whipped together, mixed, re-kneaded and re-invented to make up a completely original product, ideal example of contamination able to reveal itself as a "genre" apart.
"A Livingroom Hush" is Jaga Jazzist debut CD in which all this is made explicit in the better way: the electronics of synthesizers and drum-machines integrates itself perfectly in the acoustic of vibes, trumpet, saxes, bass clarinet, trombone and tuba originating liquid and flowing sounds but broken too, with insistent rhythmics but able of unexpected lyrical opening moments.
Perhaps the best way to understand the art of this group is trying to describe briefly the tracks on this CD. From the beginning "Animal chin" falls the listener into the groove created by Jaga Jazzist with digital screaks and a furious drum&bass rhythm which are like a carpet for the melody of flute and sax. It follows "Going down" where is admirable the interplay among acoustic guitars, baritone sax and bass clarinet on a percussive base only rippled with electronics. "Press play" is an occasion for a meeting between the two tenor saxes and introduces to the slow "Airborne" with the electric piano that accompanies the bass clarinet in a sinuous melody with a vague latin taste; near the end the piece speeds up giving the opportunity to the tenor sax to explode in a fulminant solo in Coltrane's style. "Real racecars have doors" alternates a dark Massive Attack sound to flute more relaxed atmosphere, to percussions and to a good solo by bass clarinet. In "Low battery", as the title advises, all is slower, rhythm and melody describe an hypnotic and liquid path over which sax, trumpet and bass clarinet improvise in an alienation feeling. "Midget" is pure rhythm, frantic and repeated, over which organ plays, followed in contrast by "Made for radio": a fresh percussive rhythm obtained with vibes and percussions mixed with the fascinating melody by wind instruments. "Lithuania" the longest track in the whole CD is also the one where electronics attracts less attention: on an accompaniment on cymbals first the guitar then the vibes and marimba introduce and guide the melody, taken up soon by wind instruments, which gives to the track a dreamy nature. The record is closed with "Cinematic" the more undoubtedly "ambient" track: any rhythm is disappeared, the piano, "disturbed" on the background with electronic "noises", plays in the whole piece a melancholic phrase while electronics slowly grows up to saturate all.
Many people says jazz is dead: I don't think so, neither in its more traditional forms, nor in the more innovative, and there's not doubt that artists like Jaga Jazzist bring a great contribution for its evolution in one of the possible ways. You can fond of it or not, but certainly we have to consider too this way to mean music, jazz and its change in relation to new sensitiveness and new technologies. Also this it can mean making music: letting ourselves down in the spirit of the times, accepting, not passively, outward goads and making them our own to create into originality....

Jazz meets glitch, on Jaga Jazzist's debut album A LIVINGROOM HUSH, with more of an emphasis on the jazz part. Lots of horns and instruments placed over skittering beats. In a word: excellent. Imaginative throughout, with a wide range of moods. While "Going Down" and "Press Play" both skew upbeat, "Airborne" starts off with a quieter, more thoughtful quality (with some static thrown in for good measure) with a sudden riotous build towards the end. "Low Battery" has a spy-esque theme running through it; "Lithuania" is so uplifting that it could be an anthem for that small country. The final track, "Cinematic," takes a simple theme and augments it with feedback and noise. An astonishing debut.