Recommended: Taxídi – “Dreamy Train”

The different influences that color Dreamy Train populate the album as would movie characters, each with their own distinct personality.  The tango shades on title-track “Dreamy Train” and the disco flirtations on “Katrina” and the Arabic folk of “Dubka” and the hot jazz of “La Faux” and the chamber music of “MMT” and tracks like “Blue Soda” that incorporate all of these elements and more in varying strengths and ratios all have prominent roles in this cinematic soundscape from the quintet Taxídi.  In many ways, perhaps the best ways, it takes the classification of World Jazz to heart, and attempts to bring as much of the planet’s musics into the quintet’s embrace.

The percussion often keeps to a conversational patter, and the contrast this sets in motion with the harmonic offerings is why the gentle waves of strings and the stirring of wind instruments can rise up to a sweeping grandeur when adopting subtlety as its form of engagement.  The quintet typically sticks to crisp melodies, but rarely allows them to tell their entire story until the song’s finish line is within sight.  This dichotomy of a simple tunefulness and a pervasive sense of mystery is a big reason why so much of this album is as compelling as it is.

Your album personnel:  Simon Fransquet (guitars, charango, percussion), Isaline Leloup (double bass), Joachim Loneux (accordions, cajon, bodhrán, percussion, tap dance), Rudy Mathey (clarinet, bass clarinet, tin whistle), Zoé Pireaux (flute, voice) and guests: Karim Baggili (flamenco guitar), Quentin Liégeois (electric guitar), Alain Deval (drums), Taio Thai (rap, beat box), Antoine Dawans (trumpet) and Yano Polis (viola).

Released on Home Records (.be).

Listen to more album tracks on the label’s Bandcamp page.

Music from the Liège, Belgium scene.

Available at:  Bandcamp | Amazon | eMusic