Album Reviews

Album Review: Cobblestone Jazz – The Modern Deep Left Quartet (!K7)

By | Published on Wednesday 24 March 2010

Cobblestone Jazz

Cobblestone Jazz’s trio of Tyger Dhula, Mathew Jonson and Danuel Tate has now become a quartet with the addition of The Mole, aka Colin de la Plante. Actually, he’s been touring with them for over a decade, so he’s no beginner when it comes to their jazz influenced electro-tech montages, which sit in a niche between bedroom and dancefloor, but it seems no one thought to ask him over to the studio until now.

For a perfect example of what the band are all about you should check out the mellowish ‘Chance Dub’, which comes in with techno, some great melodies and the bass kicks turned up well loud. Elsewhere, ‘Sun Child’ bounces along nicely, with some keys and wibbles akin to I:Cube’s ‘Disco Cubism’, and is similar to how The Bays often sound in places. The album’s finale is the beatsy chill of ‘Midnight Sun’, which perhaps leans on Dan Curtin’s foray into alternative downtempo with his ‘Blue Apple Funk Drops’.

It’s not a perfect album, though. ‘Mr Polite’, with its vocoder and wobbly bass, isn’t great, and the bass line in ‘Cromagnon Man’ is oddly reminiscent of the old ‘Dr Who’ theme tune in a way that is only just forgivable. These slightly lower points mean that ‘The Modern Deep Left Quartet’ doesn’t quite match up to previous LP ’23 Seconds’, but there is enough good leftfield dance on offer to hold your interest. PV

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