The Reason Why Vol. 1 Goran Kajfeš

July 11, 2013

HiFi +

Goran Kajfeš is a Croatian born Swedish resident witha a trumpet and amore interesting record collection than most. The Reason Why Vol. 1 takes on the music that inspired him to make his last album X/Y (reviewed in these pages in 2011). This is a better album, a stronger more diverse one because of the variety of compositions. The original artist are listed next to the tracks and include Cluster, Soft Machine, Tame Impala and the turkisch psych maestro Edip Akbayram. Yet this doesn´t sound like a psych album because of the heavy brass contingent in the band, it is closer to Zappa´s Grand Wazoo or Mulatu Astatke. The sources are truly global; Brazilian Arthur Verocai, Swedes Archimedes Badkar and Bo Hansson and Nigerian Celestine Ukwu in addition to those mentioned above. The Subtropic Arkestra consists of a horn section alongside guitar, bass and drums not to mention a variety of keyboards including harpsichord. All are played by demons who whip up a rich, dynamic, twisting and spinning yet totally coherent maelstrom of great sound. The quantity of "voices" means that a degree of compression has been used to fit them all in but the vinyl pressing goes someway to opening and smoothing out the hard edges of the CD. JK

More reviews

Artist