I was lucky to be exposed to the music of M'lumbo a number of years ago in my role as music reviewer on this and one of the other blog pages I continue to keep going. It took me a little getting used to but I have come to very much appreciate the adventure of every M'lumbo release. Each is a thick carpet of sound, a tapestry of vibrant arranged and free Jazz elementals and advancements, a large sound that butts up against contrasting sound washes, samples of text and music with a story to tell, often enough of a future retrospective sort of a utopia of technological "marvels" (like stereo or the advent of cassette tape and how to flip the tape at the end of a side), political, cultural and old-school audio drama. post-glitch and pre-new Afro-Futurist Space Age music. The music of the future in the past and the past in its future, music genre collages from Funk to Avant, Bop to Psychedelic, a golden cosmic bowl of everything that continually metamorphoses.
So there is a new one, a two-CD set with the welcome appearance of Jane Ira Bloom on soprano and electronics. It is called Celestial Mechanics (Rope a Dope 2-CDs), which goes along of course with the often cosmic orientation of the music. As always it is a universe of sound. And the sampled text, effects, music samples and the band itself put it all together to tell richly complex stories in sound. Sometimes very funny. Otherwise dramatic-serious. And musically cutting edge, Jane Ira Bloom sounding marvelous, that band equally on top of it!
It works. Open yourself to it and you will float outwards into a very complex and stimulating space! This is a good one to start with.
