I don’t know where this came from but in a bleak month of review listening they brought a great big smile to my sour face. Freeform jazz-psychedelic noodling that mostly sounds like a load of rats trying to chew their way free from a music room but the rats are very happy and the room is very sunny and the instruments are all very well tuned. Most songs either degenerate into (or form out of) the sort of noises that you would associate with someone picking up an instrument for the first time and going “I hate jazz it’s just a load of people doing this” and then playing lots of bum notes really quickly. Of course, if you hate jazz, then even the most melodic jazz will irritate you and Umanzuki are not for the faint of heart but their music sounds like it was created from scintilla of light bouncing off quiet lakes, fractured rainbows and distant playground laughter so whether you understand it or not (or see the musical value) it’s difficult not to feel the joy that’s been compressed into this strange but beautiful little album.
75,000 dodecahedrons
