othin spake alert

The Wack Attack Barrack "is the Nr 1 e-label in Belgium." I first heard of it last night on the radio, while driving home from Fly's first Belgian concert. In WAB's jazz section, you can listen to and/or buy Jef Neve's and the VVG Trio's debut albums, each of which is 2-3 years old. Teun Verbruggen drums on both.

Teun's just released his own debut, with his guitar/keyboards/drums trio Othin Spake. I raved about an OS concert back in February and fully expect to rave about The Ankh (RAT Records) soon. Not just because it's the first CD in which I am cited in the thank you's, or even because the packaging is beautiful (no point in putting up a picture, as the shiny-black-angel-wings-on-matte-black-background isn't exactly screen-friendly) - continuing the trend I identified a few weeks ago - but because the music is a glorious, fully-improvised mess of grooves constantly falling apart and distortion coalescing into melody.

If you believe that Keith Jarrett circa Cella Door is the best the Fender has ever sounded in jazz and thought "Finally!" when you first heard Bojan Z's xenophone, then Jozef Dumoulin is the Fenderist for you. He's not quite as cataclysmic as Sun Ra at the Fondation Maeght, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Jozef and Teun manage to structure - or should I say, guide - the maëlstrom without sounding square or forced and it's often hard to tell Jozef and guitarist Mauro Pawlowski apart, which is precisely the point. It should be up on The Wack Attack Barrack soon. In the mean time, you can listen to a track on the Rat Records website.