pintomusica

An amazing second full length set from Quasimode -- easily one of the most soulful combos working in the current club jazz underground! Quasimode cover some of the same territory as their Japanese contemporaries Sleepwalker -- an older style of soul jazz -- played live, mostly with acoustic instrumentation -- in ways the hearken back to the best older work on labels like Impulse, Strata East, and Black Jazz. They've got a great sense of focus and drive -- really pushing their tunes with a sense of energy that most regular jazzmen these days can hardly touch -- yet also doing so in a way that always swings strongly, with the kind of jazz dance rhythms that first sent international collectors digging for soul jazz sides a few decades back! This time around, they've got some wonderful help from Carmen Lundy on two tracks -- bringing in vocals that recall the best work on her own albums from a decade or two ago -- and other guests on the album include Mika Arisaka on vocals and Masato Nakamura from Sleepwalker on tenor sax. Titles include "Raw Cotton Field", "Over The Horizon", "Dark Beauty", "Percussion Revolver", "Last Nine Days", "For Self Defense", "Time Is Love", "The Man From Nagpur", and "Object In The Mirror".