FES LIVE

De meest onbetrouwbare muziek sinds 1999

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Flat Earth Society Orchestra bewandelt de grens tussen veelkleurig surrealisme en praktische gewiekstheid met een Belgische eigenzinnigheid die even logisch als onweerstaanbaar is. 

De 15-koppige bende werkt met bladmuziek en strakke arrangementen, maar net zo goed met alarmerende hoeveelheden speelruimte en onvoorspelbaarheid. Ze switchen daarbij moeiteloos van stijlen en temperamenten. Niet enkel omdat ze dat kunnen, maar omdat sommige mogelijkheden nu eenmaal niet genegeerd kunnen worden. De generositeit van Flat Earth Society is op maat van zij die op zoek zijn naar een XL-shot adrenaline of hun met trots uitgedragen onbetrouwbaarheid.

De composities en arrangementen zijn steevast verankerd in 20ste-eeuwse tradities – van diverse jazzvertakkingen naar rock, exotica en hedendaagse muziek – maar ze vertrekken vanuit een resoluut 21ste-eeuwse spirit, werkend aan een oeuvre dat even groot en gelaagd als herkenbaar is. Flat Earth Society is dat zeldzame beest: een intelligent, moeiteloos excentriek orkest dat steeds opnieuw z’n huid afwerpt en vooral live steeds opnieuw piekt. 

Pianist/Rhodes-specialist Uri Caine ging al voor hen overstag (Psychoscout, 2005), evenals Jimi Tenor (2008) en Ernst Reijseger (2012). Rockicoon Mike Patton (o.a. Faith No More, Fantômas) bracht na één beluistering gelijk een compilatie cd uit in de States op zijn label IPECAC Recordings (FES-ISMS, 2004).

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CONCERT RECENSIES

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Lincoln Center, New York
(Andrey Henkin – The New York City Jazz Record, Juni 2011)

“We’re playing all of these tunes for the last time,” remarked clarinetist Peter Vermeersch, conductor and spokesperson for Belgium’s Flat Earth Society. He was speaking during the large ensemble’s premiere US performance at the David Rubenstein Atrium (May 19th), just two days before the heavily-advertised end of the world. This comment was very much in line with the group’s sardonic humor, naming songs after “our favorite dictators”, for example. The 15-piece group, a typical big band augmented by guitar, accordion and vibraphone (with the pianist also playing keyboard) offered up supremely coordinated madness, the likes of which American audiences more often expect from the Dutch.

But don’t forget that the two countries border each other and that Belgium itself is composed of two distinct ethnic groups. A similar dichotomy was in place musically: complex charts requiring intense focus leavened with low comedy. The audience certainly appreciated the latter though one wonders, given that this was a free concert, about the former. During the almost 90-minute set, the band performed Carla Bley’s “Musique Mecanique”, displaying what may be a more accurate foundation for their aesthetic, more so than, say, Willem Breuker’s Kollektief. And unlike that band, the personalities were subsumed, the overall sound most important.

The group was, world still existing, to perform as accompaniment to the film The Oyster Princess at the Museum of the Moving Image the next day, an intriguing notion.

London Jazz Festival
Flat jazz...not at all
(Ivan Hewett - Telegraph, 21/11/2007)

A band called Flat Earth Society sets you up for something determinedly against conventional wisdom, and this “cult Belgian band” of 13 players is certainly that. They come on to the cramped Purcell Room stage with artful casualness, two or three of the band breaking into a number (or possibly three different numbers) before the rest have arrived. The accordion player Wim Willaert picks up a wine glass and plays a note on it. It’s all cheerfully anarchic. Looking at this lot, you can understand why forming a government in Belgium might be tricky. But this is just a front for a big band that’s as tight and together as any I’ve seen. They’re led by clarinettist Peter Vermeersch, who also composes and arranges most of the band’s material. It’s soon clear what moves him musically. He loves blues and gospel, he loves old film noir, he loves Quincy Jones. But there’s a political heat there too. In Ich, Bin, George, Vermeesch pokes fun at American military music, and in another number Willaert takes on the role of Dr Goebbels, who keeps interrupting the band’s natural style to “correct” it, until all we’re left with is a relentless military beat. This is funny (and not just a fantasy, as Goebbels did in fact try to encourage a form of “Aryan” jazz), but it’s in pretty dubious taste, too. At one level, everything the band does is in bad taste. The music is full of bizarre and shocking juxtapositions, as in Without, which has a weird combination of a neon-lit muted trumpets and moody piano with strange fluttering sounds on clarinets. But, once you’ve got over the sheer oddity, the juxtaposition becomes poetic, though in a surreal way. It’s as if a night scene in a Raymond Chandler novel were suddenly invaded by a flock of seagulls. Vermeesch’s approach is risky, which is what makes it so energising. The chasm between the hectic drilled brilliance of the big band moments, and the sudden silences and strange “spacey” sounds that intersperse them is vast, and Vermeesch’s music could simply disappear down it. What saves it is the band itself. It’s the presence of some big personalities with virtuoso improvising skills that binds the whole experience together. Most extraordinary among them is the multi-instrumentalist and singer Tom Wouters, who on this showing must be one of the most talented musicians alive.

London Jazz Festival
John L Walters - Guardian (22/11/2007)

Flat Earth Society, a tight 15-piece band led by clarinettist and composer Peter Vermeersch, late of X-Legged Sally. Two brilliant sets confirmed how accomplished they are, twisting rapidly from theatrical bombast to tenderness, collective improv, mad movie-chase music and back to swinging anthems such as Gulls & Buoys and, er, Anthem 2004. Wet is Wet presented jazz as envisaged by Goebbels. Vermeersch grins impishly, like a young Daniel Libeskind, as he directs his close-knit ensemble. He is a monster talent, with an outrageously original band.