Pierre Anckaert Trio vs. Monkey Robot – 74 Miles Away (MPM)

We previewed a couple of tracks from this LP at the end of last year and they proved very popular, so we were pretty darned excited to get our hands on the full album. Just to remind you (as if we need to), ’74 Miles Away’ has been lovingly put together by our friends Laid Back Radio in Brussels and Melting Pot Music from Cologne and is a collaboration between Belgian jazz pianist/composer Pierre Anckaert and producers MonkeyRobot (LuiGi & eric P. previously known as Infinitskills). The concept behind the record is that Pierre Anckaert composed and recorded four electric jazz tracks with his trio, and then MonkeyRobot got their hands on them to radically rework each one.

So, with the great promise shown by the preview tracks, how dies it stack up as a complete record? Well, on face value, this is definitely an album of two halves; the first contains the four jazz tracks and the second the equivalent soulful, hip hop tracks, now renamed and reworked into what, during the first few listens, sound like very different songs. We love jazz music but would never profess to be experts in it, however we found all four to be excellent in their own right. Some, such as ‘August City Blues’, are as ‘traditional’ as you can get: others such as ‘Chromeface’ are a little more contemporary but still extremely listenable. The switch to the Monkey Robot tracks is a subtle one, with the only discernible difference at first being the use of a heavy bass line. As the vocals come in, supplied by AHU (from the first Flying Lotus album), Carina Andersson (the voice on 4 Hero’s ’Les Fleurs) and Miles Bonny, these tracks make their own space, but still hold the feel and ambience of the first four. The result is that the two ‘sides’ can easily be listened to together in one sitting and, in fact, each benefits from that subtle contrast they create. We would have liked to have seen more music on the record (when it finishes there is definitely a feeling of wanting more); perhaps a full album of each style, or extending the songs further. The blissful mood the LP creates deserves to be felt for as long as possible – let’s hope that this is not the last collaboration of this sort we see. ’74 Miles Away’ is released on Melting Pot Music digitally on 18th February and physically on 4th March 2011.

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Listen to ‘Chromeface’ by The Pierre Anckeart Trio

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Listen to ‘Find A Place’ by Monkey Robot

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This entry was posted on Friday, February 4th, 2011 at 1:45 pm. It is filed under Featured, Reviews and tagged with 4Hero, AHU, Carina Andersson, Melting Pot Music, Miles Bonny, MonkeyRobot, Pierre Anckaert. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.