Fontanelle — F

Fontanelle is what happens if you sneak into a jazz band's rehearsal space during the night and substitute their instruments; Instead of acoustic piano, put some synths, replace the horns and saxophones by weird rubbery electronic sounds, keep the guitar but sometimes make it play in the strangest phrasing possible, sometimes in effect laden tones and put some candy bars under the drum kit (just to be nice).

I guess it would be safe to say that the spirit of Miles Davis ("Bitches Brew" era) inhabited the studio and offered inspiration to the band during those sessions (which, in fact, were the same as those from which the band's debut comes) - well, if it wasn't his spirit, it's just that the band listens to his albums really often. Of course Fontanelle serves us that style with an electronic/krautrock sauce, but it only proves that Mr. Davis (and lets not forget to mention all the wonderful musicians that worked with him) is still relevant today.

On this EP the band, which consist of a revolving door of musicians, can be heard jamming around on some motifs (ie. Floor Tile), guitars lines playfully circling around one another, drums playing very jazzy fills or more groovy rhythms. It's sometimes evident that the songs are improvised, but the band seems to be a good editor for itself (self-editing?) and they know, most of the time, when things are becoming "too much" and the cohesiveness is lacking. For example, in Fulcrum there is a tempo change right at the moment when things get a little too confused. It's also apparent that the band know what they are doing; when the chemistry is there, it can reach up near the "damn this sounds good" level that many improvisation outfits can't quite reach. At other times it doesn't gel as well (ie. some parts of "Charm & Strange") but, all in all, the good moments take up more of this 37 minutes EP than the bad ones.

Something worth mentioning, the last track, "Walking with Mercer", is much darker than the rest of the disc and features a distorted guitar which plays a slow riff that is repeated over and over again; it would remind me slightly of some doom-metal if it didn't also have some clean guitar improvising in a jazzy way and some weird backward-sounding ambient electronic sounds.

I would recommend this EP to open minded jazz fans, amateurs of mood building and well played instrumental music and, of course, to those who appreciated Fontanelle's debut album. It's not the greatest thing since slice bread (what's so good about sliced bread anyway?), but it's definitely enjoyable when the mood is right.

(picture by David Nakamoto)