专辑简介

by Dave LynchWhen musicians start throwing rock, jazz, and classical seasonings into the same stew, the results often come off as pretentious, and both listeners and critics often conclude that such disparate stylistic morsels should never be mixed up in the same bowl. And yet, off in the non-commercial lunatic fringe of the avant-prog world, there have been plenty of successful mergers of these genres. New York City has always been a mecca for artsy types seeking to throw all kinds of musical flavors together and confound listener expectations. Another place that seems to have more than its share of such avant-prog oddballs is tiny Belgium, particularly the even tinier Flemish part of Belgium. And here, on Ornithozozy, a warped and fun album with a title that's a wacky variant on the name of a classic Charlie Parker tune, the two scenes briefly come together. This is the one and only full-length CD by Fukkeduk, a Belgian/Flemish outfit produced by Nick Didkovsky, the high-energy electric guitarist and composer who leads one of New York City's longest-running avant-prog bands, Doctor Nerve. The fit between band and producer couldn't be more natural. With their fast and frenetic rhythms, snappy unison horn and sax lines, hot electric guitar solos, and freewheeling mélange of the aforementioned styles, Fukkeduk finds the common ground between Doctor Nerve and Belgium's own X-Legged Sally, twisted avant-proggers of the highest order. There are even cello and violins, played with considerable muscle, sounding rather like a string trio on steroids (and foreshadowing the Sirius String Quartet on Doctor Nerve's Ereia). But what distinguishes Fukkeduk from their many ill-fated crossover brethren is attitude; the band is wild and irreverent in the spirit of Zappa, not a bunch of pompous art rockers, technique-flaunting fusionists, or serious-minded third streamers. They play relatively brief instrumental tunes that juggle jazz-funk, chamber music, heavy metal, and more, and practically everything is relentlessly up-tempo. Quick-cut juxtapositions can be quite extreme, as in "Si Vous Êtes Alfred Schlicks, Then I Have to Be Julius Meinl," with Frank Ghysels' metal guitar (owing a lot to Didkovsky's approach throughout the album) thrust into the middle of what sounds like Raymond Scott cartoon music. Trumpeter/flügelhornist Bart Maris, a mainstay of the Belgian avant scene, has some nice soloing moments in the comparatively subtle jazz swinger "L'Homme Qui Rêvait de Mettre la Lune Dans sa Poche" (there are a few short titles on the album, by the way), while bassist Kristof Roseeuw gets a moment in the spotlight playing the singing saw over a tango rhythm in "Lulu de l'Odeur de Bibi." Another more than capable contributor is saxophonist Nicolas Roseeuw, who scatters moments of free jazz-flavored squealing skronk here and there across the CD. But focusing on Nicolas Roseeuw's sax work alone would be selling him short, since he also composed two-thirds of the music on Ornithozozy. An album that could have come as easily from Gent or the Lower East Side, Ornithozozy shows that successful rock, jazz, and classical hybrids are indeed possible, as long as there are bands like Fukkeduk on either side of the Atlantic, with killer chops but the good sense to keep self-importance and pretension out of the recipe.