Lob!

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Though this latest Lob! album has been around a while, it's currently relevant due to its place amongst the hordes of musicians investigating the fusion of drum'n'bass and electric jazz. Though 'fusion' conjures horrifying images of the Al Di Meola Project or Chick Corea Elektrik Band, Lob! are ploughing a very different furrow, avoiding the cliches and bombast of 70s fusion with the benefit of hindsight, sampling technology, and shifts in music away from foregrounding technical virtuosity in favour of, er, foregrounding the background. All these tracks are fairly lengthy jams in nature, often starting slowly and atmospherically, building to intensely rhythm-section driven d'n'b workouts, from which the lead voices of sax, guitar and turntable emerge to take solos or lever the mix in a particular direction. "Stalker" provides a release, recorded live in Manchester (at the semi-legendary Band On The Wall), and proceeding at a stately, almost funereal place, as guitar, saxophone and spoken word samples drift across a shimmering haze of looped strings. Instrumentally, the band has real talent. Rex Casswell's guitar sounds not unlike Pete Cosey (w/70s Miles) or Mike Stern (w/80s Miles), and Ralph Littlejohn's sax is excellent, with a clear Jan Garbarek influence emerging in some extremely lovely playing on "Leghorn Blows At Midnight". Andy Cato's drums form a formidably tight rhythm section with Peter Marsh, and Paul Simmonds' turntables, tapes and loops are pretty tasty throughout. The samples are refreshingly unique, encompassing Alice in Wonderland, BBC radio, and various stolen voices, engendering a very British, slyly humourous feel. Two minor criticisms: whilst Peter Marsh's funk bass effortlessly roots everything in an almost hypnotic fashion, its lack of variation can begin to wear. Likewise, the limited scratching technique eventually shows. These are small issues though, as the band clearly has enough skill, taste and vision to do the right thing, and their imminent next release should be worth hearing too.