Soccer 96: As Above So Below
Author: Nick Hasted
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Musicians: |
Dan Leavers (ky, syn) |
Label: |
Slowfoot |
Magazine Review Date: |
November/2016 |
Catalogue Number: |
SLOCD030 |
RecordDate: |
2013-2016 |
Dan Leavers and Max Hallett are two-thirds of The Comet Is Coming, and share that band's fascination with cosmic cycles and spiritual transcendence. An analogue synth-drum duo who compose through improvisation, serendipity and jams, their second album shows the broad musical realms such jazz mind-sets now encompass. Psychedelia, techno and 21st century R&B intertwine, in a trip Sun Ra and Ken Kesey would comprehend. Third Comet Shabaka Hutchings’ whirling-dervish sax guests on ‘The Swamp’, a typically dub-spacious, spare yet texturally full track, with itchy carnival percussion and ritual cries fading in from some primeval forest. ‘Megadrive Lamborghini’ is airily euphoric pop, Hallett's hard snare-cracks and expanding river-ripples of cymbal maintaining off-kilter yet drivingly danceable rhythms. As its title suggests, As Above So Below is meant to suggest the universe's interlinked layers, and cycles from birth to death (see also The Beatles’ lysergic manifesto, ‘She Said She Said’). ‘Spirit Wobble’ does this via impish, haunted trip-hop, ‘Ancestors’ with sonar bleeps from somewhere in the interstellar dust. This spiritual strand is surprisingly strong in UK jazz now, from Matthew Halsall to Soccer96's Mercury-nominated Comet day-job, to Melt Yourself Down. In a politically chilly country, they're offering underground heat.

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