The Turkish quartet may be known due to its ongoing of collaborations with some heavyweight champions of free jazz and free improvisations – sax player Peter Brötzmann, Joe McPhee, Marshall Allen, Evan Parker and Akira Sakata, double bass player William Parker and guitarists Eugene Chadbourne, Thurston Moore and Keiji Haino. But Konstrukt is a highly resourceful group on its own and «Molto Bene», the 19th album of the quartet in the last eight years, offers another testimony of its unique, powerful stew of futuristic fusion, psychedelic free jazz, avant-prog and experimental dance rhythms. «Molto Bene» is a limited-edition album (300 discs and 250 vinyls). It was recorded at Matt Brodin’s Outside Inside Studio in Montebelluna, Italy on the summer of 2015, where Konstrukt stopped for two days before heading to the A L’ARME! Festival in Berlin to perform with William Parker.
The four pieces of «Molto Bene» stress the almost encyclopedic knowledge of Konstrukt musicians in the many incarnations of free, improvised and electric music. All four pieces sound as played by a much bigger ensemble, as sax player Korhan Futacı, guitarist Umut Çağlar, bass player Barlas Tan and drummer Berke Can Özcan add electronics and other instruments to their arsenal. And all pieces sound as rooted in unspecified, often alien sonic territories, multilayered with Turkish authentic instruments, veiled in dense spacey walls of sounds and charged with intense, propulsive rhythmic eruptions.
«Mercan» and «Alarm» on side A sound as referencing Brötzmann reckless energy, distilled through Miles Davis «Bitches Brew»-era funky-electronic interplay and spiraled into hazy Gong pot-head-pixies stratosphere. «Toi Toi», the longest piece on side B, continues developing the collaborative work of Konstrukt with Manchester-based guitarist-clarinet player-producer Graham Massey that explored cosmic-acid terrains (Konstrukt feat. Graham Massey & Davis McLean, «Live at Islington Mill», Astral Spirits, 2016) , as this piece evolves from slow-cooking, repetitive-hypnotic electronic pulses to exotic, fractured free-improvised blows. This energetic trip ends with a concise and wild, psychedelic-noisy blast on «Anjio».
Eyal Hareuveni
Korhan Futacı ( as, ts, gralla, fl, v, instant loops), Umut Çağlar (g, micromoog, electric piano, zurna, gralla, fl, tape echo, rhythmbox), Barlas Tan Özemek (b, bass synth), Berke Can Özcan (dr, electric drum module, perc)
