‘No Taboo’ sets the tone with what can only be described as big band jazz on hyper drive, think United Future Organisation meets Charlie Mingus to create the soundtrack to a high speed chase through Tokyo’s clubland.

The pace rarely lets up but individual tracks offer enough shades of calm and frenzy to let you catch your breath and appreciate the rich, complex but always tight as a drum arrangements. ‘Waltz for Goddess’, with echoes of McCoy Tyner, for instance takes a few breathers from its otherwise relentless jazz pounding to drop into calm piano moments and hand clap grooves.

For a genuinely downbeat track, Bill Lee’s ‘Mo Better Blues’ provides a framework for languorous horns to stretch over each other in elegant but slow arcs. By way of contrast, ‘Master of Pimp’ features what sounds like demented ravings in Japanese over thunderous percussion and horns.

Soil and Pimp Sessions broke out of the Tokyo club scene. They have the backing of a major record label over there, star status and are already onto their second album. This, their debut, will see us right for some time to come though.

This is jazz. The jazz you want and need for adventurous dancers. It’s no wonder it seduced Gilles Peterson and it would be hard to imagine a better choice to kick off his new Brownswood Recordings label.

Soil and “Pimp” Sessions - Pimp Master is released on July 10 on Brownswood Recordings

Links:
www.brownswoodrecordings.com
www.soilpimp.com