APIFERA - Keep The Outside Open

California's Apifera arrive at their second album, authors of an eclectic, nu jazz leaning on post-rock that had already stood out for its personality on their debut "Overstand", and which now on "Keep The Outside Open" takes on further shades of nuance.

As on the previous album, tracks like "Oh Me Brotha" and "Bazooka Zoo" bring back those Tortoise-like tones – somewhere between the emptied-out spaces of Millions Now Living Will Never Die and the shimmering maximalism of Standards or It's All Around You. The breadth of scope here is just as wide, if not wider: on "Down The Silverlake" or "I Love Ecm" – though really in plenty of other tracks too – the tones and textures come close to the Canterbury sound, and the wonky fusion of artists like Otis Sandsjo and STUFF. is a fitting (if not necessarily intentional) reference point for tracks like the funk-inflected "Sandbox Galore" and the opener "Iris Is Neil" (which, at least rhythmically, also sounds like a meeting between Radiohead and "Tomorrow Never Knows").

The mood of the tracks has become even more defined and distinctive: most of the pieces carry an elusive kind of brio, a vibe that's both fizzy and languid at once. Moondog, Penguin Café Orchestra, Icy Demons are all useful reference points for getting a sense of the oblique suggestiveness of these atmospheres, but of course the most effective way is simply to listen. "Ortogonaleya" is a prime example, with its light-and-shade interplay of lazy synths weaving over a bed of restless, ticking percussion. Or "Sera Sam", on which the band hosts their trumpeter friend Avishai Cohen and the mood turns even more rarefied, with horn brushstrokes suspended between ambient jazz and Third Stream.

But the album also sets itself apart from the debut in the role given to vocals, which on "Theodor Marmalade", "Lucky Zoe" and "The Curious Wild" build into proper – if crooked – songs, closer in mood to Mice Parade than to the band's declared influences (Knower, Hiatus Kaiyote, Domi & JD Beck…).

Apifera are keyboardists Nitai Hershkovits and Yuvi Havkin (aka Rejoicer), drummer Amir Bresler and bassist Yonatan Albalak, all four Israeli-born. The band describes the album as alternative jazz ("with a pinch of prog, a touch of post-rock and a hefty dose of psychedelia"), and it's released on the esteemed label Stones Throw, known for cutting-edge hip-hop (Madlib, J Dilla, James Pants).

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29/07/2024