Systems music has always had the capacity to make you tap your feet but never the ability to make you dance – try bopping to Glass or Reich and you’ll see what I mean. But Man Jumping have managed the almost impossible, and have turned in a dance mix of systems music, funk, electro pop and jazz that would not sound out of place in any disco.
The group has grown out of the now disbanded Lost Jockey systems orchestra and occupies the middle ground between the ‘seriousness’ of the minimalist composers of systems music and the popularism of the likes of Talking Heads and occasionally Bowie. But Jumpcut is no feeble compromise, rather a well-executed and successful fusion that defies categorisation. With its multiple keyboards and layers of repetition, the overall sound is hypnotic, at times intense but always accessible and overtly rhythmic.
For those who fail to see the jazz in all this, Jumpcut swings from first to last, its textural ensemble interplay and freer passages bringing to mind Moiré Music. Sharp, witty and infectious, Jumpcut is an exciting debut from a group of genuine improvisers. More please.
Discography
In The Jungle; World Service; Aerotropics; Belle Dux On The Beach (20.30) – Walk On, Bye; Squeezi; Down The Locale (18.55)
Andy Blake (saxes): Charlie Seaward, Glyn Perrin, Orlando Gough, Schaun Tozer (kyb); John Lunn (b); Martin Ditcham (pen): with Barbara Snow (t); Roger Heaton, Tim Holmes (cl): Spiros Baghros (bazouki/koto); Sue Raven (v). Recorded London 1984.
(Cocteau Records JC5)
