Machinedrum

Jaga Jazzist, the Norwegian multi-instrumental boundary-busters, may occupy a niche, but it feels like an enduringly spacious and fertile one, where sounds that recall everything from Weather Report to big-band jazz, krautrock, Radiohead or even the Pat Metheny Group intertwine. Last year’s 20th anniversary retrospective was fascinatingly diverse, but Starfire – conceived in composer Lars Horntveth’s new Los Angeles home, rather than in Oslo – is a more densely layered and studio-dominated deployment of this band’s awesome resources. The title track is classic Jazzist: a sound like the Shadows driven by a marching-band thump skids through power-chord guitar hooks and Zappaesque melodic zigzags; the atmospheric Big City Music is a masterly balance of quickfire rhythm-section ingenuity and the instrumental diversity of guitars, keys and brass. The tunes remain quirkily dramatic and the thematic scene-shifting spectacular, but a little thinning-out would have let Jaga Jazzist’s uniquely mercurial music breathe more.

Since their emergence a decade ago, the Manchester-based trio GoGo Penguin have been internationally hailed as electrifying live performers, innovative soundtrack composers, and as a collective who channel electronic and club culture atmospheres as much as minimalist influences or jazz legacy. GGP/RMX is a concept that the group have fostered for years; it comes to brilliant fruition as a vividly reimagination of their fifth album, and self-defining masterwork, GoGo Penguin. Each track from the album is reimagined as well as a mesmerising new version of the previously rare gem “Petit_a.” The group have personally enlisted an array of the world’s sharpest artist-producers and remixers.

“We wanted to have our album Outer Edges remixed by a lot of very different artists. When we made the album we went as far as we could within our own confines; exploring and stretching the outer edges. That’s why we didn’t do any collabs on the album. With this remix package we asked a lot of very different artists to take that material beyond our edges, into their respective domains. We are really happy that they managed to take our music into completely different dimensions, with such exciting results!” – Noisia