CRAMMED DISCS CRAM138 - 2009
CHEER ME, PERVERTS!
Musicians
Stefaan Blancke trombone,
Benjamin Boutreur alto sax,
Berlinde Deman tuba & euphonium,
Bart Maris trumpet,
Michel Mast tenor sax,
Marc Meeuwissen trombone & euphonium,
Kristof Roseeuw double bass,
Peter Vandenberghe piano & keyboards,
Luc van Lieshout trumpet,
Bruno Vansina bariton sax,
Teun Verbruggen drums & dustbingrooves,
Peter Vermeersch clarinet,
Wim Willaert accordion & keyboards,
Tom Wouters clarinet & vibraphone
Credits
Recorded by David Minjauw at Dada Studio, November 2008, Brussels
Mixed & mastered by Pierre Vervloesem at Studio Fiasco, Brussels
Produced by Peter Vermeersch
Coverpicture by Giannina Urmeneta Otikker
Artwork by Marc Meeuwissen
Review
Will Metcalfe - Bearded magazine.co.uk, 24/06/09
Cheer Me, Perverts! is an anagram of Flat Earth Society’s Peter Vermeersch – clarinetist and bandleader of Belgium’s Flat Earth Society. The 14-piece jazz ensemble play music like few others; with both feet planted firmly in the avant-garde, Vermeersch and co. engage the listener in a dual, move or be moved almost. The ten tracks that comprise this, their ninth record veer from circular insanity towards a hypnotic anarchy.
‘Mutt’ is a broken circus chime – a writhing, spiralling eight-minute exploration of the broken, the demented and the plain wrong. One moment it’s hell on a saxophone and the next Vermeersch breaks through all calming and doe eyed; you might think you know bizarre but it seems Flat Earth Society are here to convince you otherwise. Cheer Me, Perverts! is a record swimming with joy – ‘Bad Linen’ is chaotic, punctuated with wayward sax and unruly percussion before melting down into yet another carnival anti-theme.
The surrealism of the record is not limited to the music – opener ‘Vole Sperm Reverie’ boasts perhaps the strangest title of the year and leads off with a blustering guitar line before the band kick in with the most cacophonous of choruses. Combining traditional jazz sounds with a more exploratory, roving element that brings the band dangerously close to the realms of Mr. Scruff and Captain Beefheart.
Flat Earth Society are a band that fail to acknowledge genre for the best.
Simon Chandler - www.experimusic.com, 25/05/09
Unlike with politicians, who are often compelled to step down if they even hint at possessing sexual organs, it’s very easy for us to forgive musicians and artists for their personal failings and eccentricities. We forgive Morrissey for being a pleasure-hating misanthrope, we forgive Salvador Dalí for referring to himself in the third person and stealing the pen of anyone who asked for his autograph, and we forgive Frank Zappa for naming his children Moon Unit, Dweezil, Ahmet Rodan and Diva (hopefully none of them work in the building trade). And now we should also reserve some forgiveness for Belgium’s Flat Earth Society, because even though their name seems to suggest a risible belief in the world being flat rather than spherical (or is that ellipsoidal now?), the eccentric, vibrant and often intense jazz on their new long player, ‘Cheer Me, Perverts!’, is more than enough to compensate for any antiquated notion they might hold.
An anagram for the name of clarinettist and band leader Peter Vermeersch, ‘Cheer Me, Perverts!’ is Flat Earth Society’s sixth album, and as the name implies the Flemish group aren’t without an off-kilter sense of humour and play. ‘Vole Sperm Reverie’ escapes from the asylum with twangy, gumball guitars and mischievous, wayward trumpets, modulating at the drop of a hat and generally wrecking the place in a fit of free-spirited energy. But as soon as ‘Rearm, Get That Char!’ enters the scene with its jumpily syncopated rhythms and scenic melange of continental horns and keys, it quickly becomes apparent that FES aren’t one-trick ponies by any stretch of the imagination. They know how to mix mood, setting and pace, regularly doing so within the breadth of one song, and their sometimes patient, sometimes impetuous progressions make for a constantly engaging run of 10 tracks. Witness ‘Blind Inside’: this piece begins in an atmosphere of suffocating tension and drama, its descending piano and menacing spaghetti-western guitar bringing to mind a standoff at dawn between two desperados, before reaching a fever pitch that finds release in an unexpectedly bright and breezy yet still kinetic jaunt through manic flutes and ambrosial vibraphones.
And things actually get better in the second half of the album, with FES stepping up both the intensity and the ingenuity. Track 6, ‘Too Sublime in Sin,’ is a slab of elegantly plaintive midnight jazz severed in half by a jarring rumble of symbols and squawks, a rumble which sees all hell break loose in a joyous riot of uncontainable sax and trombone riffs before reverting to the piece’s original sleepiness. But it’s not just the sequencing of parts that makes ‘Cheer Me, Perverts!’ such an exciting listen. The parts themselves, in particular the sympathetic, dynamic interplay between band members, are just as worthy of praise, often being colourfully multi-layered, tunefully memorable, and full of challenging meter changes. Nowhere is this more apparent than on ‘Flatology,’ which sees the band reach full flight in a whirlwind of effervescent swing licks and erratic free-jazz sections. Here FES flit to and from an air of celebration to emergency as they steadily build momentum towards the song’s peppy finale, and for all their frantic avant-gardisms it’s a highly cohesive and infectious piece of big band jazz.
That’s the beauty of ‘Cheer Me, Perverts!’ Not only does it marry experimental zest and accessible harmony, but it does so with more success and panache than anyone would’ve thought feasible. And for that Flat Earth Society should be revered as one of the best jazz bands around at the moment. Just don’t go anywhere near their science of Flatology. That is unless you possess the artistic talent to magically exonerate you of your weirdness.
Alarm Magazine, June 2009
This vibrant, upbeat big-band jazz ensemble entwines circus, burlesque, lounge, and Cirque du Soleil sounds in its quirky mix — one that counts on 23 regular members.
The title of this second album for Crammed Discs is an anagram of the group’s leader, Belgian composer/clarinetist Peter Vermeersch. It’s a fitting title for an album that sounds joyous and debauched — an album that should vie for best jazz disc of 2009.
United Mutations blog
"Cheer Me, Perverts" (an anagram for Peter Vermeersch) is the latest Flat Earth Society album. This is big band music like you 've never heard before (not counting the previous FES albums). Up-tempo, hyperkinetic, angular and funny melody lines and rhythms are mixed into 10 impressive compositions.
The band has a very rich and colourful sound. The solos are superb and fit in perfectly with the compositions. This is music at its best.
Frank Zappa, Raymond Scott, the Sun Ra Arkestra, … you name it. They're all in there somewhere. This latest FES album is essential listening. But then again, we wouldn't expect less. I want to see cartoons that use this music !!
Sharon O’Connell - Time Out, 21/05/09
Bad Linen, track from Crammed Discs LP, ‘Cheer Me, Perverts!.
We picked this track for the sole purpose of repeating the post 9/11-joke about the SWAT team hiding out in John Lewis’s homeware department. They were looking for Bin Laden. Boom boom. Moving swiftly on… this is a brilliant piece of avant big-band (14-piece) jazz-funk – bold, brassy, bonkers ans very likely beloved by both Barry Adamson and Matthew Herbert.
Cheer Me, Perverts! is an anagram of Flat Earth Society’s Peter Vermeersch – clarinetist and bandleader of Belgium’s Flat Earth Society. The 14-piece jazz ensemble play music like few others; with both feet planted firmly in the avant-garde, Vermeersch and co. engage the listener in a dual, move or be moved almost. The ten tracks that comprise this, their ninth record veer from circular insanity towards a hypnotic anarchy.
‘Mutt’ is a broken circus chime – a writhing, spiralling eight-minute exploration of the broken, the demented and the plain wrong. One moment it’s hell on a saxophone and the next Vermeersch breaks through all calming and doe eyed; you might think you know bizarre but it seems Flat Earth Society are here to convince you otherwise. Cheer Me, Perverts! is a record swimming with joy – ‘Bad Linen’ is chaotic, punctuated with wayward sax and unruly percussion before melting down into yet another carnival anti-theme.
The surrealism of the record is not limited to the music – opener ‘Vole Sperm Reverie’ boasts perhaps the strangest title of the year and leads off with a blustering guitar line before the band kick in with the most cacophonous of choruses. Combining traditional jazz sounds with a more exploratory, roving element that brings the band dangerously close to the realms of Mr. Scruff and Captain Beefheart.
Flat Earth Society are a band that fail to acknowledge genre for the best.
Simon Chandler - www.experimusic.com, 25/05/09
Unlike with politicians, who are often compelled to step down if they even hint at possessing sexual organs, it’s very easy for us to forgive musicians and artists for their personal failings and eccentricities. We forgive Morrissey for being a pleasure-hating misanthrope, we forgive Salvador Dalí for referring to himself in the third person and stealing the pen of anyone who asked for his autograph, and we forgive Frank Zappa for naming his children Moon Unit, Dweezil, Ahmet Rodan and Diva (hopefully none of them work in the building trade). And now we should also reserve some forgiveness for Belgium’s Flat Earth Society, because even though their name seems to suggest a risible belief in the world being flat rather than spherical (or is that ellipsoidal now?), the eccentric, vibrant and often intense jazz on their new long player, ‘Cheer Me, Perverts!’, is more than enough to compensate for any antiquated notion they might hold.
An anagram for the name of clarinettist and band leader Peter Vermeersch, ‘Cheer Me, Perverts!’ is Flat Earth Society’s sixth album, and as the name implies the Flemish group aren’t without an off-kilter sense of humour and play. ‘Vole Sperm Reverie’ escapes from the asylum with twangy, gumball guitars and mischievous, wayward trumpets, modulating at the drop of a hat and generally wrecking the place in a fit of free-spirited energy. But as soon as ‘Rearm, Get That Char!’ enters the scene with its jumpily syncopated rhythms and scenic melange of continental horns and keys, it quickly becomes apparent that FES aren’t one-trick ponies by any stretch of the imagination. They know how to mix mood, setting and pace, regularly doing so within the breadth of one song, and their sometimes patient, sometimes impetuous progressions make for a constantly engaging run of 10 tracks. Witness ‘Blind Inside’: this piece begins in an atmosphere of suffocating tension and drama, its descending piano and menacing spaghetti-western guitar bringing to mind a standoff at dawn between two desperados, before reaching a fever pitch that finds release in an unexpectedly bright and breezy yet still kinetic jaunt through manic flutes and ambrosial vibraphones.
And things actually get better in the second half of the album, with FES stepping up both the intensity and the ingenuity. Track 6, ‘Too Sublime in Sin,’ is a slab of elegantly plaintive midnight jazz severed in half by a jarring rumble of symbols and squawks, a rumble which sees all hell break loose in a joyous riot of uncontainable sax and trombone riffs before reverting to the piece’s original sleepiness. But it’s not just the sequencing of parts that makes ‘Cheer Me, Perverts!’ such an exciting listen. The parts themselves, in particular the sympathetic, dynamic interplay between band members, are just as worthy of praise, often being colourfully multi-layered, tunefully memorable, and full of challenging meter changes. Nowhere is this more apparent than on ‘Flatology,’ which sees the band reach full flight in a whirlwind of effervescent swing licks and erratic free-jazz sections. Here FES flit to and from an air of celebration to emergency as they steadily build momentum towards the song’s peppy finale, and for all their frantic avant-gardisms it’s a highly cohesive and infectious piece of big band jazz.
That’s the beauty of ‘Cheer Me, Perverts!’ Not only does it marry experimental zest and accessible harmony, but it does so with more success and panache than anyone would’ve thought feasible. And for that Flat Earth Society should be revered as one of the best jazz bands around at the moment. Just don’t go anywhere near their science of Flatology. That is unless you possess the artistic talent to magically exonerate you of your weirdness.
Alarm Magazine, June 2009
This vibrant, upbeat big-band jazz ensemble entwines circus, burlesque, lounge, and Cirque du Soleil sounds in its quirky mix — one that counts on 23 regular members.
The title of this second album for Crammed Discs is an anagram of the group’s leader, Belgian composer/clarinetist Peter Vermeersch. It’s a fitting title for an album that sounds joyous and debauched — an album that should vie for best jazz disc of 2009.
United Mutations blog
"Cheer Me, Perverts" (an anagram for Peter Vermeersch) is the latest Flat Earth Society album. This is big band music like you 've never heard before (not counting the previous FES albums). Up-tempo, hyperkinetic, angular and funny melody lines and rhythms are mixed into 10 impressive compositions.
The band has a very rich and colourful sound. The solos are superb and fit in perfectly with the compositions. This is music at its best.
Frank Zappa, Raymond Scott, the Sun Ra Arkestra, … you name it. They're all in there somewhere. This latest FES album is essential listening. But then again, we wouldn't expect less. I want to see cartoons that use this music !!
Sharon O’Connell - Time Out, 21/05/09
Bad Linen, track from Crammed Discs LP, ‘Cheer Me, Perverts!.
We picked this track for the sole purpose of repeating the post 9/11-joke about the SWAT team hiding out in John Lewis’s homeware department. They were looking for Bin Laden. Boom boom. Moving swiftly on… this is a brilliant piece of avant big-band (14-piece) jazz-funk – bold, brassy, bonkers ans very likely beloved by both Barry Adamson and Matthew Herbert.
All About Jazz - Ian Patterson, December 6, 2009
Fifteen-piece Belgian big band Flat Earth Society is the sonic equivalent of a freak show—weird, wonderful and like nothing you've come across before. Cheer Me, Perverts! is bursting with the energy of punk—sharing some of the anarchy, too—yet the CD exhibits intricate section harmonies and wonderful contrapuntal melodies. The soloists revel in their freedom, and the playing is characterized by idiosyncrasy and skill in equal measure. Frank Zappa-esque and Duke Ellingtonian in turn, Balkan brass meets 1970s prog rock, Cheer Me is a stirring concoction, which could be the soundtrack for a Terry Gilliam film about a traveling freak show careering through post-industrial Eastern Europe.
Founder Peter Vermeersch leads the band over rocky musical terrain. Pulsating brass rhythms comingle with eerie funfair keyboards on the opener, "Vole Sperm Reverie." Peter Vervloesem's guitar solo has an earthy '70s feel and contrasts nicely with Michel Mast's tenor solo, which squeals and writhes like a pig on the way to a slaughterhouse.
Brass buzzes like a swarm of angry bees on "Blind Inside," while on "Rearm, Get That Char!" Luc Van Lieshout's muted trumpet sounds like a brooding Miles Davis, circa On the Corner (Columbia, 1972), meeting the jungle sounds of Duke Ellington's band. "Kotopoulopology" staggers like an inebriated Zorba the Greek (1946), accelerating briefly as though tumbling drunkenly down an incline; when the clarinet enters, it sounds for all the world like a chiding wife.
Beefy brass riffs run through many of the compositions, and noirish arrangements build like gathering storm clouds. When the brass section reaches a full head of steam, as on the tremendous "Too Sublime in Sin," the dark power summoned is enough to set free the hounds of hell.
There is, however, an obvious subtlety to the music. Bruno Vansina's lyrical flute intro and subsequent solo on "Blind Inside" are gorgeous, and "Too Sublime in Sin" begins with the chamber finesse of the Modern Jazz Quartet, with meditative contributions from accordion, piano and trombone. However, the reverie is shattered by a brass intervention that sounds like a lunatic pounding on his car horn. The song reaches a skull-crushing intensity, with brass chirping and growling over searing guitar before returning to the delicate piano of the intro.
Charlie Shavers' "Dawn on the Desert" boasts lush Ellintgton-like brass arrangements, with velvety baritone underpinning flirtatious clarinet. The closing segment of the number recalls "It Had Better Be Tonight" by Henry Mancini. The spirit of Ellington is heard also in Peter Vandenberghe's piano playing and Teun Verbruggen's tremendously impressive drumming, his percussive coloring and hard swing bringing to mind both of Ellington's great drummers, Sonny Greer and Sam Woodyard.
Thumping rhythms and jungle noises sit alongside Zappa-esque circus-motif gaiety and percussive plonks and tweaks. Bebop jazz is not afraid to raise its head, and occasional abstract passages contrast with ensemble playing of real beauty and power. As riotous as it is infectious, this is a strong contender for big band album of the year.
Matt Evans - Rock-a-Rolla, May/June 2009
Something about Belgium inspires its citizens to gather in large numbers to form rollickingly great high-energy genre-splicing big-band ensembles. Think of One, Galatasaray, and Flat Earth Society, to name but three. FES comprises 14 brash, super-talented instrumentalists in the thrall of composer/clarinettist Peter Vermeersch. Their ninth album rewires the big-band idiom with a severely swinging math-meets-jazz sensibility, exuberant dramatic flair and an awe-inspiring sense of harnessed chaos. At speed , FES are unassailable – take opener ‘Vole Sperm Reverie’, a lost cop theme powered by grimy gumshoe-funk horns, or the rampaging ‘Flatology’, which splices hard-bop velocity with Monk-style melodic tangents. Yet even the sedate tunes seethe with barely contained energy – indeed the brittle melodies of ‘Too Sublime in Sin’ shatter under the strain, unleashing diabolical discordant forces. Big, boisterous and brassy, Cheer Me, Perverts!, is as slinky as sleazy as it gets, and offers more thrills per second than surfing on a lava flow with an angry baboon stuffed in your trews.
Flat Earthers hurl themselves over the edge
(Sid Smith - bbc.co.uk, 18/05/2009)
You get a lot of bang for you buck with the sixth album released by Belgium's Flat Earth Society. A cavalcade of extrovert performances erupt from this 14-piece group boasting tuba, trombone, trumpet, clarinet, euphonium, various saxes, keyboards, accordion, electric guitar and a riotous rhythm section in its line-up.
The intriguing album title comes from an anagram of the name of group leader Peter Vermeersch and he guides his top-notch players through the same anarchic territory as their last release, Psychoscout (2006), like some wild-eyed pied piper.
Recalling the madcap ensemble tendencies of Loose Tubes or the wry flourishes of Kurt Weill arranged for a Burlesque house band, every piece shines with exuberant, provocative charts.
Themes and variations jump out on top of each in a series of frenetic cat and mouse ambushes with the intricately scripted cartoonish violence of one of Scott Bradley's more fantastical Tom & Jerry scores.
Occasionally Vermeersch dials down the mayhem long enough to allow moments of exquisite sensitivity to be revealed, allowing the listener to pause for breath. Yet too often these are swamped in an avalanche of blaring horns and instrumental comedy routines.
This is a pity because whilst you can't fault the overall playing and inventive air, the hyperactive mania of the arrangements provokes a certain fatigue after a while. Nevertheless big, bold and frequently not so much zany as just plain daft, full marks for the full-on gusto with which these Flat Earthers hurl themselves over the edge.
Big bang reinvention for big band swing
(Ian Shirley - Record collector, 15/05/09)
Stuart Nicholson’s book Is Jazz Dead? explores the genre from a modern perspective. Two fascinating chapters deal with the Stalinist revisionism of the Wynton Marsalis-led Lincoln Centre jazz programme, which celebrated the old at the expense of the new. Ellington and Basie’s big band music was reproduced, rather then played with the panache and inventive spirit of the originals.
Belgium’s Flat Earth Society would be spurned by the Lincoln Centre, as they turn the big band on its head, shuffling musical genres like a pack of cards. Opening track Vole Sperm Reverie sounds like a TV talk show theme overloaded with musical steroids, while Rearm, Get That Char! sounds like Monk rearranged by John Zorn and Hal Wilmer, with Miles Davis’ 70s wah wah trumpet. Smoke On Fire is a wonderful eight-minute suite that starts with a low bassoon prowl and ends up sounding like the Basie Band playing as they slip off the deck of the Titanic and into the sea; Mutt is a pendulum of pure joy. An album worth acquiring for lovers of jazz, experimental music and anything that swings like the devil.
Fifteen-piece Belgian big band Flat Earth Society is the sonic equivalent of a freak show—weird, wonderful and like nothing you've come across before. Cheer Me, Perverts! is bursting with the energy of punk—sharing some of the anarchy, too—yet the CD exhibits intricate section harmonies and wonderful contrapuntal melodies. The soloists revel in their freedom, and the playing is characterized by idiosyncrasy and skill in equal measure. Frank Zappa-esque and Duke Ellingtonian in turn, Balkan brass meets 1970s prog rock, Cheer Me is a stirring concoction, which could be the soundtrack for a Terry Gilliam film about a traveling freak show careering through post-industrial Eastern Europe.
Founder Peter Vermeersch leads the band over rocky musical terrain. Pulsating brass rhythms comingle with eerie funfair keyboards on the opener, "Vole Sperm Reverie." Peter Vervloesem's guitar solo has an earthy '70s feel and contrasts nicely with Michel Mast's tenor solo, which squeals and writhes like a pig on the way to a slaughterhouse.
Brass buzzes like a swarm of angry bees on "Blind Inside," while on "Rearm, Get That Char!" Luc Van Lieshout's muted trumpet sounds like a brooding Miles Davis, circa On the Corner (Columbia, 1972), meeting the jungle sounds of Duke Ellington's band. "Kotopoulopology" staggers like an inebriated Zorba the Greek (1946), accelerating briefly as though tumbling drunkenly down an incline; when the clarinet enters, it sounds for all the world like a chiding wife.
Beefy brass riffs run through many of the compositions, and noirish arrangements build like gathering storm clouds. When the brass section reaches a full head of steam, as on the tremendous "Too Sublime in Sin," the dark power summoned is enough to set free the hounds of hell.
There is, however, an obvious subtlety to the music. Bruno Vansina's lyrical flute intro and subsequent solo on "Blind Inside" are gorgeous, and "Too Sublime in Sin" begins with the chamber finesse of the Modern Jazz Quartet, with meditative contributions from accordion, piano and trombone. However, the reverie is shattered by a brass intervention that sounds like a lunatic pounding on his car horn. The song reaches a skull-crushing intensity, with brass chirping and growling over searing guitar before returning to the delicate piano of the intro.
Charlie Shavers' "Dawn on the Desert" boasts lush Ellintgton-like brass arrangements, with velvety baritone underpinning flirtatious clarinet. The closing segment of the number recalls "It Had Better Be Tonight" by Henry Mancini. The spirit of Ellington is heard also in Peter Vandenberghe's piano playing and Teun Verbruggen's tremendously impressive drumming, his percussive coloring and hard swing bringing to mind both of Ellington's great drummers, Sonny Greer and Sam Woodyard.
Thumping rhythms and jungle noises sit alongside Zappa-esque circus-motif gaiety and percussive plonks and tweaks. Bebop jazz is not afraid to raise its head, and occasional abstract passages contrast with ensemble playing of real beauty and power. As riotous as it is infectious, this is a strong contender for big band album of the year.
Matt Evans - Rock-a-Rolla, May/June 2009
Something about Belgium inspires its citizens to gather in large numbers to form rollickingly great high-energy genre-splicing big-band ensembles. Think of One, Galatasaray, and Flat Earth Society, to name but three. FES comprises 14 brash, super-talented instrumentalists in the thrall of composer/clarinettist Peter Vermeersch. Their ninth album rewires the big-band idiom with a severely swinging math-meets-jazz sensibility, exuberant dramatic flair and an awe-inspiring sense of harnessed chaos. At speed , FES are unassailable – take opener ‘Vole Sperm Reverie’, a lost cop theme powered by grimy gumshoe-funk horns, or the rampaging ‘Flatology’, which splices hard-bop velocity with Monk-style melodic tangents. Yet even the sedate tunes seethe with barely contained energy – indeed the brittle melodies of ‘Too Sublime in Sin’ shatter under the strain, unleashing diabolical discordant forces. Big, boisterous and brassy, Cheer Me, Perverts!, is as slinky as sleazy as it gets, and offers more thrills per second than surfing on a lava flow with an angry baboon stuffed in your trews.
Flat Earthers hurl themselves over the edge
(Sid Smith - bbc.co.uk, 18/05/2009)
You get a lot of bang for you buck with the sixth album released by Belgium's Flat Earth Society. A cavalcade of extrovert performances erupt from this 14-piece group boasting tuba, trombone, trumpet, clarinet, euphonium, various saxes, keyboards, accordion, electric guitar and a riotous rhythm section in its line-up.
The intriguing album title comes from an anagram of the name of group leader Peter Vermeersch and he guides his top-notch players through the same anarchic territory as their last release, Psychoscout (2006), like some wild-eyed pied piper.
Recalling the madcap ensemble tendencies of Loose Tubes or the wry flourishes of Kurt Weill arranged for a Burlesque house band, every piece shines with exuberant, provocative charts.
Themes and variations jump out on top of each in a series of frenetic cat and mouse ambushes with the intricately scripted cartoonish violence of one of Scott Bradley's more fantastical Tom & Jerry scores.
Occasionally Vermeersch dials down the mayhem long enough to allow moments of exquisite sensitivity to be revealed, allowing the listener to pause for breath. Yet too often these are swamped in an avalanche of blaring horns and instrumental comedy routines.
This is a pity because whilst you can't fault the overall playing and inventive air, the hyperactive mania of the arrangements provokes a certain fatigue after a while. Nevertheless big, bold and frequently not so much zany as just plain daft, full marks for the full-on gusto with which these Flat Earthers hurl themselves over the edge.
Big bang reinvention for big band swing
(Ian Shirley - Record collector, 15/05/09)
Stuart Nicholson’s book Is Jazz Dead? explores the genre from a modern perspective. Two fascinating chapters deal with the Stalinist revisionism of the Wynton Marsalis-led Lincoln Centre jazz programme, which celebrated the old at the expense of the new. Ellington and Basie’s big band music was reproduced, rather then played with the panache and inventive spirit of the originals.
Belgium’s Flat Earth Society would be spurned by the Lincoln Centre, as they turn the big band on its head, shuffling musical genres like a pack of cards. Opening track Vole Sperm Reverie sounds like a TV talk show theme overloaded with musical steroids, while Rearm, Get That Char! sounds like Monk rearranged by John Zorn and Hal Wilmer, with Miles Davis’ 70s wah wah trumpet. Smoke On Fire is a wonderful eight-minute suite that starts with a low bassoon prowl and ends up sounding like the Basie Band playing as they slip off the deck of the Titanic and into the sea; Mutt is a pendulum of pure joy. An album worth acquiring for lovers of jazz, experimental music and anything that swings like the devil.
