#zigzagger

Takuya Kuroda feat. Antibalas - Think Twice (Zigzagger, 2016)

On the whole, this 2016 album feels to me like a self-aware leap straight into a new musical space that certainly already existed, but is infrequently delved into in such a deliberate and thorough way. I feel that Kuroda’s impressive contribution to the canon inches the door open to the inevitable reinvention of the modern sound, coming out of the fusion of the old. To my ear, I’m catching influence from Miles Davis, Roy Hargrove, and Nicholas Payton to mention a few on the jazz side, but on the production side, it almost hybridizes many aspects of rock, Funk, gospel, hip hop, afrobeat and R&B, including other things that can only be achieved through laborious dedication to the crafting of the final product in post, with Kuroda’s own twist. It varies greatly as well in the timeline of its references, indicating Kuroda’s vast knowledge of musical genres of many eras. Likewise, the contrast and transition between sonic spaces on each individual song is incredible. Only a few of the tracks include vocals, but the texture of the sonic atmosphere and the asymmetrical groove of the melodies are inescapable. For lovers of instrumental and vocal music alike such as myself, it’s perfect. For those who still need a little convincing, perhaps the vocal tracks will resonate on a song by song level, and the instrumental stuff could be good music to study to given that it has the same energy without the ‘distraction’ of lyrics.

Like the album cover, the songs on Zigzagger are highly visual. If you close your eyes, it brings you to so many different places, like in a dream.

R.S.B.D., the first track on the album starts with an upbeat gospel sounding set of chords with a simple melody overtop which are shortly revealed to have been 11/4, or 22/8 [pick your poison] the whole time… lol In other words, it’s asymmetrical as anything and kinda prog rock sounding. Then they come in with a post-bop jazz sounding melody, followed by a metal-like drop which is much slower, but still on the same metric grid with a repeating shred with all instruments together. THEN they come back to the original groove and chords with the new melody overtop and gospel hits behind, and they bring it down by bringing back the original simple melody an octave up, and there’s a whole-band setup like they’re going to the next section. BAM it hits, and the energy drops for a sec as they reveal the next keyboard melody which is this dreamy loop that sounds like its in outer space. And then they drop the ill beat on em and the vocals come in, horns are back, vibe is crazy!! Mean solos too!

The tracks Do They Know, Think Twice, and, again, R.S.B.D. include vocals while the rest are instrumental, but even so the instrumentation is not constant. In some places, the bass is synthesized, and sometimes its electric or upright bass. Sometimes there is auxiliary percussion like congas, other times not.

All this combined with modern production approaches and technology make for a concoction that defy the idea that music has fallen into a loop of stagnation. It’s a genre-blurring future of integration facing music in our globalized society. Resistance is futile!