London Odense Ensemble

Keeping the tone locked into nodes of psychedelic jazz today, another great album slips out of the European enclave at El Paraiso Records. Split between heavy psych scorch and heady jazz, the label has become something of a refuge for EU and UK players that move through progressive circles. For its debut, the London Odense Ensemble evolves out of another combo at the label. Earlier in the year the Rude Skøtt Osborn Trio laid down an equally impressive excursion into exploratory jazz, anchored by the addition of London saxophonist Tamar Osborn to the already entrenched duo of Martin Rude and Jakob Skøtt, who’ve been label regulars for years. The trio expands to a quartet with keys of Al MacSween injected into the sound, an alchemical change that brings on a record rooted in the heady ‘70s electric ozone of Sanders, Miles, Cherry, and Hancock’s prime.

The record digs deeper than either the duo or trio formations present have been able to reach. Jaiyede Sessions Vol.1 is marked not only with deep earthen furrows from Osborn, and cosmic flourishes from MacSween, but also guided by an orchestrating hand from Jonas Munk, who ran the mixes through dub-laden effects, giving the record a touch of the same dark magic that re-rubs from Dave Harrington have been harnessing lately. Quite a few have been trying to reach the level of living jazz beast that seemed to spawn throughout the many nodes of the ‘70s psych-jazz pantheon, but few are coming as close as London Odense Ensemble have right here. Jaiyede Sessions Vol.1 is one of the year’s best, as I’ve already mentioned, but it bears repeating.