An evening with UZVA, 4th Apr 2007

I managed to check out these guys all night spectacle at 4th of April in club Semifinal in Helsinki. This was a quite nice event with about two and half hours of instrumental music in two sets. The band played material from all of their current albums along with some recent material, not yet released on records or even named. Their music is quite peaceful and groovy psychedelic jazz rock with folk influences, swirling from ethreal pastoral moments to more dynamic jazz rock sequences. If I should name some bands which came into my mind from their music, would be Brittish Soft Machine, the 70's jazz stuff of Frank Zappa, Finnsih Tasavallan Presidentti and maybe the softer improvs of 1972-1974 King Crimson. The band has two guitars, bass and drums rhythm section and two wind instrument players. In the end of the set there were also few guest musicians bringing some violins to the "Drontti" song. The players were very skillfull, and there were no audiable mistakes to be heard, though the lead guitarrists face impressions were sometimes in agony when he played a solo, so maybe they didin't go just in the way he intended, but they sounded great to my ears surely. Also his neurotic speeches between the numbers were funny. The musicians were also quite humble, and the bassist had to be gripped to the front of the stage during his solo.

 

The musical performance was enhanced with strong visual elements, concisting from film exertpts and photo slideshows. The theme on the films was interesting, there was a long black & white sequence of a woman walking in the sand dunes, and the as she reached a forest, the film switched to color and there was a short vision of her moving in enchanting way, then her acid-treaded profile was stickied to the corner of the screen, whilst there was a long sequence of visions of natural phenomenas (fastened films of growing plants etc.). I though that maybe there was an idea of taking a trip to wild nature from the city, and then having a strong experience with it. There were also some excerpts from Andery Tarkovski's "Solaris" car-driving sequences in the films. The nature-themed slideshows were used in quiet acoustic parts, and the sound of the slide projector was also audible (though it didn't matter). Another sound disturbance was created by Kreator, who were performing in the Tavastia club next door, haha.

 

The live gig made me hope even more, that the band would release on official live album, as their stuff works live so well. Also I would recommend their concerts for anybody able to attend them, and for the band I would encourage for them to seek out concert opportunities outside from Finland, as their music is international due its instrumentalisms and the exellent artistic and technical qualities of the players. Thanks for the gig!

Edit log: Reuploaded the pic + corrected few typos in 2nd Jan 2013