Drone Assembly
One can liken Tilburg-based trio Drone Assembly as much to an ongoing science expedition as a musical project. Standing over an impressive assortment of instruments and gear, the members coalesce until becoming – in their own words – a “living organism”; synths, looping stations, effect pedals are combined with organic percussion, acoustic instruments and vocals in a probing, conversational way. Indeed, each performance by Drone Assembly is a completely unique sensory experience.
Over the five years since the project’s beginnings, Drone Assembly have performed in all kinds of unusual settings. And in doing so, they defy conventional hierarchies between performer and listener. For example, they once did a show inside of a greenhouse, and performed at the Hall of Fame in front of a sleeping audience. Though each show comes from a level of improvisation, Drone Assembly use the impressive collection of sounds and textures at their fingertips with utmost care and conviction. The result is music that ebbs and flows along the emotional beat of the moment, veering from soft mellow passages, hypnotic swells to resonant walls of noise.
Hedvig Mollestad Trio
Music magazine MOJO probably said it best when they described Hedvig Mollestad Trio’s incandescent psych rock/jazz blueprint, hypothesizing they sound exactly like the kind of music Jimi Hendrix would have likely have composed had he made it past 27.
Led by Norwegian guitar hero Hedvig Mollestad, this power trio offers an arena where the jazz aficionados and classic rock headbangers rub shoulders. Mollestad, Ellen Brekken (bass) and Ivar Loe Bjørnstad (drums) unleash free-form jazz-fusion odysseys with the same cool aplomb as rip-roaring heavy metal riff-fests – no less doing it dressed in stylish apparel.
Hedvig Mollestad Trio are the rare band that deftly mix swagger with studiousness, and when they perform you immediately sense a glee and adventure in trying to reconcile uncharted territories between Black Sabbath and John McLaughlin. No band is more equipped to burst your bubble in fun and expressive ways; Hedvig Mollestad Trio pioneers the future and revives the past with unwavering passion.
Echoes of Zoo
Echoes of Zoo, an avant-jazz/progrock eccentricity led by saxophonist Nathan Daems, prove that experimental music can be stupendously fun and forward-thinking. The name doesn't just sound cool: Daems really did grow up near a zoo, and the many animal noises he heard in his youth left a lasting impression. So much so even to the point that the band’s latest album, Speech of Species, is directly informed by the miraculous ways the animal kingdom communicates.
The band’s music itself is deliciously offbeat and relentlessly adventurous, with flamboyant sax squawks mimicking a flock of exotic birds to Afrobeat-inspired polyrhythms that slither like a lizard. There’s plenty of influences audible that reveal how stacked the record collection of each band member must be. Echoes of Zoo cherrypick sounds from literally every corner of the globe, from the Balkan all the way to Brazil, molding them into eclectic, surrealistic space jams.
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