As Wareika, Florian Schirmacher, Henrik Raabe and Jakob Seidensticker have put out albums on labels such as Perlon, Visionquest and Mule Musiq that often felt tailor-made for the house floors of this world and were, however, pretty weird as well. »Tizinabi« for the enduringly reliable Ornaments imprint falls mainly, but not exclusively, into the second category. If someone were to advertise this 45-minute piece as a recording of a particularly relaxed Theo Parrish set on a boat off the Croatian coast on a sunny Sunday afternoon, barely anyone would think twice about it. The trio jam their way through various degrees of intensity with electronic and acoustic means, using the kick drum with utmost care. The focus lies squarely on intertwined guitar licks, circular piano melodies and atmospheric synths. The groove arises out of the interplay of melodic and harmonic ideas and the percussion only latches on as an additional accent rather than setting the tempo. Fusion jazz, maybe, but of the ambient variety, Balearic in mood and Jamaican in method—jam music by proficient artists who have little desire to show off and just want to zone out. This makes for one of the most unusual, beautiful albums of the season.
Tizinabi
