STUFF. - Stuff.

Who would have ever thought that in 2015 fusion would come back into fashion. Credit goes to the instrumental hip-hop of people like Madlib and Flying Lotus, whose sound went from “abstract” to “futuristic” over time, bringing hip-hop audiences closer to the live sonorities of jazz, and vice versa. It's no coincidence that the five members of STUFF. (Andrew Claes, Dries Laheye, Lander Gyselinck, Mixmonster Menno, Joris Caluwaerts) cut their teeth playing covers of Afrika Bambaataa (“Planet Rock”) and of Flying Lotus himself (“Tea Leaf Dancers”).

The band's name, meanwhile, is a tribute to Eric Gale and Richard Tee's Stuff, responsible in the second half of the '70s for half a dozen slick jazz-rock records.

The Belgian band's self-titled debut album opens with stretched-out electronic textures that slowly coalesce around a mighty groove (“Event Horizon”). It feels like an intro meant to warm up the musicians before the wonderful “Skywalker”: bass and drums weave a Weather Report-like scenario, setting the mood for a synthesizer that sketches out a melody as simple as it is catchy.

Just as seductive is the following “Tahtam”, with synths taking the lead vocal role as in so many Herbie Hancock hits.

"Sifa" is another masterpiece: STUFF. must have learned Miles Davis's '80s albums by heart, because the track sounds like a mash-up of "Jean Pierre" (from "We Want Miles") and "Hannibal" (from "Amandla").

Even when electronic textures take over, as on the ballad "Caves", the instruments keep locking into grooves that never lose their fire. "Java" is the funkiest track on the whole album, yet another nod to the much-maligned 80s-era Miles Davis ("Tutu"), with the bass always sitting ahead of every other instrument in the mix and the synths sketching out the main melodies.

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15/11/2015