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Spiritual Jazz paths always open up unexplored dimensions, this is the clear impression revealed by this superb and ambitious first double album by Lina Langendorf and her new band. The Swedish saxophonist (OK Star Orchestra, James Yorkston, Nina Persson & The Second Hand Orchestra) seems to be blowing in the lesson of the great sacred monsters of the instrument such as Wayne Shorter, Pharoah Sanders or Archie Shepp, but revising it in a melting pot of bolder contaminations. The secret lies in embracing different musical traditions and genres in the flow of a futuristic, psychedelic sound in constant metamorphosis. Ethio Jazz may marry Mali Blues, Afro Beat, Scandinavian melanolic melodies and tonalities from the Mandinka tradition. Everything, however, is focused toward a lysergic fury of rhythmic euphoria. Acid keyboards draw astral and hypnotic grooves, kaleidoscopic carpets, exotic intergalactic and satellite patterns; a hymn toward the Cosmos that still smacks of Sun Ra-like solar myths and Mulatu Astatke's East African winds. Co-produced with Sing a song fighter.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Being compared to Wayne Shorter, Pharoah Sanders or Archie Shepp must be quite a lot to get your head around when you're an up and comer. But I can see how Langendorf United have garnered such grandiose comparisons. This is ace!