JUMP FOR JOY!

Jump For Joy! is an ensemble that moves quickly into the heartland of avantgarde jazz and stays there for the duration of the concert experience this live album documents. The musicians are renowned instrumentalists and performers, and this is an album where you can easily hear that this is the case, even if the music itself doesn't speak to you. Those fond of expressive, avantgarde jazz with a liberal amount of improvisation should have a field day with this album.

The topnote is quite complex. In the beginning weird synthesizer-oriented sound pressure like a crying kitty confuses us. Multistreaming hard-edged percussion, crazy tremendous saxophone plays, or gorgeous piano sound compilation is exactly their credential of avantgarde, innovation. It's very amazing their improvised sound production is completely harmonized and crystallized together although each of them is kinda musical giant. My favourite movements are second and third. The second one drenched in tunes / noises / samples improvisation sounds like sorta Krautrock like Mahogany Brain or Semool. Rhythmic unification cannot be heard anywhere but can suggest everyone plays with full smile and full mind. In the third movement, we can hear beauty in confusion. Beneath Yumi's piano and maybe Japanese voices, we can feel ethnic delight and tragic vibe whilst sensitive, complicated moment.

The whole album can be thought as a JUMP FOR JOY's theatrical, inspired suite. This musical nutrition will directly be digested and absorbed in your brain, with such an eccentric sleeve pic. ;)

What an illusive music council. The audience can get immersed completely in sorta "unpolished" beauty created with energetic instrumental portfolio by all talents of identity. Each musical magnification joins hands with others just like a cup of ice cream seasoned with deeply matured soy sauce (yum really). Wish I could have attended RIO Festival in 2016 ... always feel so every time I read Ian Carss' review for them (and realized he's a sincere man ;) ). Polyrhythmic (dissecthismic?) sound intervention leaning toward the RIO / avantgarde movement merged with Faust's Krautrock bizarre black magic experimentalism (that can be heard e.g. via "Soleil Cheval Malade" or so).

Every piece has great tension launched by brilliant drumming duo who sound like a singular single aloof percussionist. And Yumi's piano always dress an experimental / avantgarde / mystical elixir for the audience and themselves. Geoff's wind instruments have definite massive personality, presence and existence, all of which should be about to swallow everything down. Actually, every artist has his/her own musical and artistic vector, therefore it sounds like one would turn his/her face toward the very same (musical) direction, I consider their soundscape cannot be recommended for every RIO / Avant-progressive rock freak, but yes we can grab another innovative milestone via this creation. Try it.