DJ GRAZZHOPPA'S DJ BIGBAND + AKA MOON - DJ Grazzhoppa’s DJ BIGBAND + AKA MOON

Belgium's Cyprès Records has proven over the years to be one of the most quality-conscious labels in classical and contemporary music, thanks to a catalogue that includes some of the most fascinating listening experiences of our time, featuring composers of the stature of Helmut Oehring, Georges Aperghis and, above all, the late Fausto Romitelli.

Two outfits come together in the making of this album: the jazz trio Aka Moon, led by saxophonist Fabrizio Cassol, and the first ever big band made up entirely of DJs - twelve of them, to be precise - assembled under the aegis of DJ Grazzhoppa. These are names that seem superficially incompatible, coming from very different subcultures, yet they share an underlying spontaneity in their creative approach, that identification between performance and environment which demands the body be placed at the centre of both musical production and reception.

Here the art of turntablism native to the hip-hop universe illuminates Cassol's improvisational designs, the architect of disorienting compositional hybridizations that nonetheless stick to a processing of material organically divided among the various DJ stations, synchronized like a functional backing orchestra for carrying out the collective performance. There's also room for DJ Grazzhoppa's solo scratches on "Solo Grazzhoppa", and especially for the powerful black voice of Monique Harcum, who strolls through trip-hop and soul music on the irresistible "Wonderful" and "Say Yeah".

On the other hand, what remains of jazz, in the strict sense of the term, is continually infiltrated by electronics, through the generation of a sound that knows no textual mediation and that exalts both the individual psychophysical skill of the trio's members and the blend of rhythmic manipulations across the big band's various sections. It's as if the incisiveness of Aka Moon's gestures also depended on their attunement with the contagious danceability refracted in the sonic mix. On "7 Times" and "Amazir" all the musicians involved express their feel for an alluring state of relaxation, in which changes of tempo never lose elasticity or composure, and in which the trio's refinement and thirst for research line up perfectly with the exuberance and heterogeneous aesthetic of DJ Grazzhoppa, who finds in the sampling of "found" sounds not just a factor of stylistic finishing, but a solid structural foundation from which to work on the overall texture of the blends and the instrumental fabric.

This is certainly not the first time someone has tried to make the languages of jazz and hip-hop collide; positive results were already achieved in the past in the works of Keith Elam aka Guru and DJ Spooky (just think of the excellent "Optometry"), to name a couple of particularly influential figures. So what sets this release apart from its predecessors? First of all, the format, which features a one-of-a-kind big band unlike anything else in the world. Secondly, with DJ Grazzhoppa's DJ BIGBAND + AKA MOON, we are no longer dealing with a simple case of contamination between codes learned empirically within a concert or recording system, but it seems possible to speak of a linguistic integration between components that dissolve into one another and can no longer be told apart. Put simply, everything came together spontaneously, without too much conceptual fuss. This is a reflection that's fully understandable, much like the tracks on the record, which manage to keep the listening experience accessible and hold the listener's attention, despite the inevitable experimentation.

Recorded at the KVS in Brussels on 13 March 2007. Alongside the CD, included as a bonus, is a DVD featuring footage of the performance.

Musicians:

Fabrizio Cassol (alto saxophone)

Michel Hatzigeorgiou (Fender bass)

Stéphane Galland (drums)

Monique Harcum (vocals)

DJ Grazzhoppa, DJ Boulaone, DJ Courtasock, DJ Iron, DJ J to the C, DJ Lamont, DJ Mixmonster Menno, DJ Optimus, DJ Smimooz, DJ Vindictiv, DJ XXL, DJ Yzerbeat, DJ Cee Brown (turntables)

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08/07/2011