The wish may be the father of the thought: to make music as addictive as that damned slot machine, aka the one-armed bandit. To achieve that goal, Jaga Jazzist, the inventive nine-piece company from Norway, takes its listeners on a fascinating journey again. The journey on this fifth album takes you past crackling electronics, prog rock breaks, relaxed ambient and exotic instruments such as the
… bulbul tanag (a banjo from India) and the marxophone (a kind of zither). The music on One-Arm Bandit moves between prog, minimal music, alternative pop and fusion. So the band worked hard for two years on One-Arm Bandit. The Jazzists only spent a full year mixing and mastering this album. The result is a warm, artisan love letter to the musical experiment, that repeated listening turns indeed addictive. And the good news is that Jaga Jazzist's musical slot machine does pay out its winnings. (PdK)more