The Turkish, Istanbul-based quartet Konstrukt is one of the most versatile and exciting free-jazz group working today. Konstrukt has performed and recorded before with a long list of free jazz and free-improv heavyweights from both sides of the Atlantic as Joe McPhee, Marshall Allen, Peter Brötzmann, Evan Parker, Akira Sakata, William Parker, Thurston Moore and Alexander Hawkins. So this new release, a limited-edition of 175 cassettes with digital download options, that teams the quartet with the Manchester-based guitarist-clarinet player Graham Massey and keyboards player David McLean, simply continues the adventurous, searching journey of Konstrukt.
The British musicians share a similar need to push musical boundaries into spectacular sounding meltdowns. Massey began his career playing in an experimental jazz band but he his known from the pioneer acid house group State 808 and his work with Icelandic artist Björk. Now he leads the powerhouse ToolShed quartet that mixes free improvisation, prog-operatics, lost-synth-liberation and exploration of homemade instruments. McLean heads the Tombed Visions cassette label that focuses on the fringes of contemporary independent music.
This live summit took place in Manchester art space, Islington Mill, on August 2015. The cassette offers two untitled pieces. The first one is a cosmic trip into the exotic, psychedelic-spacey sound universes of Sun Ra Arkestra, the Art Ensemble of Chicago and Miles Davis electric bands from the early seventies. Only now the loose, avant-funk groove is updated with subtle doses of dance electronica – acid house and techno. This free-floating jam ebbs and flows in a sweet, smoky cloud, rich with sensual moves and sounds and spiced with light Middle-Eastern rhythms, tempting horns and vintage keyboards. This slow-cooking jam that spans over thirty minutes with few cathartic eruptions. The second pieces offers a completely different sonic terrain. It is an energetic, uncompromising free jazz explosion, with screaming saxes, massive drumming and distorted guitars and basses that just keeps getting more powerful and wilder.
Fantastic trip.
Eyal Hareuveni
Korhan Futacı (as, ts, gralla, perc, live sampling, eff), Umut Çağlar (g, org, zurna, gralla, fl, tape echo, rhythmbox, perc), Barlas Tan Özemek (b, bass synth), Berke Can Özcan (dr, perc, electric drum module), Graham Massey (g, bcl, eff); David McLean (ts, Fender Rhodes, eff)
