Review: Koen Holtkamp - Nightlife (Western Vinyl) [Experimental Jazz]

Koen Holtkamp and this album have already been mentioned in blog and newsletter dispatches, and this esoteric multi-instrumentalist, label entrepreneur and open-minded, musical voyager, who's been roaming the electroacoustic-ambient-space-rockisphere for the last couple of decades on various solo missions, and as part of Mountains, has certainly delivered.

Holtkamp is intrigued by how sound can shape, and be shaped by the spaces we inhabit, so it was always going to be interesting to see how the escape from New York's hustle and bustle for a slower way of life was going to pan out. The decompression initially manifested itself in his approach. Without the social, and financial I guess, pressures and constant city temptations - he allowed himself time to experiment, the result being a modular made, past-future emulated string palette, that was inspired by the world's rich, plucked music tapestry - perhaps unsurprising for a guitarist, and this is the thread that binds the album.

Although already sounding like more than a one-man band, Holtkamp then invited drummer Greg Fox, the sax and flute playing Matt Bauder to collaborate on several tracks, which will hopefully lay the foundations for some live shows. The trio are in full effect on 'Slow Fox Run’, the album opener; Bauder tuning his sax to spiritual, Fox taking it easy behind the kit and Holtkamp providing a cosmic ambience and a mystical Asiatic vibe with his string sounds; file under blissful spiritual nu-age jazz. The strings then take off, leaving Earth behind for some zero-gravity playfulness with Bauder's flute joining in the fun. 'Northern Flicker' ups the tempo with some scurrying percussion, the emulated strings used to polyrhythmic effect and Bauder floating his sax serenely through the rush hour.

'Moon's Adrift' provides a moment of ambient jazz reflection with both Bauder and Holtkamp determined to ease over the mildly distracting, thankfully distant found sounds. 'Heavy Lights' then celebrates the Motherland’s ritual percussive roots in considered fashion, but hold tight for the album curveball 'High Winds’, which sounds like Steve Reich discovering Shangaan Electro - the jury is out on that one. Fortunately, the ensuing 'Specular’ remembers what had happened before and gets the album back on an even sonic keel again, before the aptly named 'Dream On' floats the album to its conclusion. Throw in a few less-formed, but welcome and well-sequenced interludes, and it appears that ECM-inspired jazz just got an experimental new age of new age infusion and an avant-garde-futuristic electroacoustic makeover, and I'm here for it.

For more esoteric jazz then you should be checking out Matt Gold & Dustin Laurenzi's Devotional Fade album.

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