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Artist: Uske Orchestra
Title: Niko Et La Berlue
Format: Cd
Label: Sonig
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“The Uské Orchestra's music is a mixture of styles, but not in the avant-garde sense. There are no pop music styles referenced, wildly combined or rendered ridiculous. Rather microscopic bits from all possible genres are assembled into a teeming musical bazaar. Within seconds they're likely to change mood, instrument, timbre or arrangement. Imagine the soundtrack to The Matrix, performed by a hyperactive brass band from the Balkans or Mexico. Up close, nothing about Niko Et La Berlue appears ostentatious, but taken as a whole, the voluminous magnitude of the assembled tracks emerges from the masses like mighty Leviathan. Though there are key themes discernable in the music of these four Belgians, they keep the music flowing liberally in all directions. Parts of Niko Et La Berlue sound, in fact, like freeform jam sessions spliced together randomly. When the ensemble sounds the attack, the tones are free but the vocals don't dominate, they settle casually into the overall picture. The group combines this unique singer-songwriter approach with a simultaneous cut-up madness and affected eccentricity that the world hasn't faced since the non-music of Nurse with Wound. The album's wonderful artwork completes the "Gesamtkunstwerk" or "successful synthesis of the arts".” |
