Echoes of Zoo - Higher Levels (Rebel Up / Zephyrus) [World Music]

Echoes of Zoo: Nathan Daems blowing hard on sax as well as beating his Nyabinghi drum, Bart Vervaeck with some serious, open-minded guitar work, Lieven Van Pée keeping the bass grooves hypnotic and playing well with Falk Schrauwen's drum prowess, have been busy in their lab chipping away at the boundaries of psychedelic, world music and jazz, and creating some serious fusion sounds for the last five years, and despite the members being busy with a host of other notable, TSMM-approved projects, have somehow managed to keep the music coming; album number three is almost here.

After the scuzzy, jazz funk of "Flock Logic", the quartet have just dropped the second teaser for their forthcoming October album, Collective Intelligence, which is shaping up very nicely. Immediately kicking off with a pan-African fusion of highlife and desert blues, the lads get a nice, start-of night groove on with Vervaeck providing some simultaneously lysergic and evocative guitar. A passing sax player, name unknown, is invited into the studio to provide a jazz injection, the quartet so impressed they sit back and strip things down to let them have their say in a reflective mid-track breakdown, but it's not long before they get their groove back and the party starts again. Another four weeks until the album currently seems like a long time - roll on.

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Playlist Companion

Find Higher Levels in the Slow World Playlist.