Carlo Mombelli – Stories (Instinct Africaine Production)

These 14 tracks represent a return to the jazz bassist’s earlier creative inspirations. The album is built on musical principles that shaped his 1990s work on Bats In a Belfry, An album he records with his called band Prisoners Of Strange. The band he enlisted for Stories, actually includes the same Swiss trombone player her used in Bats In A Belfry, Adrian Mears. The other star here is the prodigiously gifted vocalist, Mbuzo Khoza who makes his first date with the bassist. Khoza’s experimental vocal tropes are in fine company as he appears to enjoy the mystery of the music making process than the end results. This has been Mombelli’s defining creative feature over the past three decades. A notable tune on the new album is Motian the Explore, composition by Mombelli? in dedication to the late American free-jazz drummer, Paul Motian. It is a hauntingly beautiful piece of music with a remarkable searching quality. The languid notes and angular bass strums and frets give the song its central magic. The openness is of the bands approach eco the work of the man for whom it was made. Further, if we consider the song’s themes as being about a departed soul. It becomes possible hear and visualise something akin a sonic travel on the path of a migrated spirit, twirling and angling through the cosmos. The music is at times fearful, at times curios and searching but never without hope and joy. This is not music intended for base indulgences. It aims at a more ethereal appreciation of the arts.

8/10 – Percy Mabandu

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