SUPERNOVA

Ibliss is a Krautrock band formed around Andreas Hohmann, drummer of the first Kraftwerk line-up, and Basil Hammoudi from Organisation. The band fuses jazz rock jamming with world music influences, most notably in the Latin rhythms and the ethnic percussion and flutes.

The bulk of the album consists of two 15 minute improvisations that are a bit problematic. There's no interplay between the musicians and the basic groove, consisting of drum, bass and guitar, is too lifeless and static to hold my attention. It sounds as if those instruments were recorded first, before the soloing flutes and saxes were added without interacting with the other instruments. Anyway, whatever the cause, the result sounds like an average jam you could hear from any group of beginners. Hailing from a scene where jamming was an art, it makes this album rather redundant.

However, there are also strong indications of great talent in the band. The shorter opening and closing pieces sound much more focused and powerful. Marga fires off with percussion heavy rhythms before bass and sax join for a nice bit of brass rock. Excellent track. Also the closer Athir is nice, it has slow-paced entrancing psychedelic vibe with spacious guitar arpeggios, dreamy flutes and lots of jungle sound percussion.

Supernova is an obscure album with potential, but both the extended jams are at least twice as long as they should. Fans of Organisation, Embryo and Kollektiv might enjoy some of this album.