<p><span><span>- Melbourne label La Sape has just released a compilation of various Australian instrumental jazz groups. All the songs are inspired by jazz and funk equally it seems, as well as contemporary dance stylings.</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>The compilation starts off with a suitably spacey jam from <strong>Astral Flex</strong> (established by <strong>Felix Meredith</strong>) called<em> I Can See My House From Here</em>. Acoustic instruments are mixed with electronic drums and synth parts to great effect. <strong>On-Ly</strong>'s <em>What’s The Weather?</em> jumps from the get go, with its rolling synth bass, piano and pushing drums. It's funky and uptempo, evoking '70's <strong>Herbie Hancock</strong> and more progressive tendencies in general. A quartet, On-Ly includes bass players <strong>Carl Lindeberg</strong> & <strong>Horatio Luna</strong> (aka <strong>Henry Hicks</strong>), drummer <strong>Tommy Harrison</strong> and the eponymous On-Ly (<strong>Joshua Smeltink</strong>). The <strong>JK Group</strong> provide us with the song <em>Nutha One</em>: a shuffling jazz-funk groove. Dreamy polysynth stabs start off before bass and drums shuffle in. Sax completes the picture, the track mutating throughout. It reminded me of the greatly underrated Sydney group <strong>Directions In Groove</strong>. <strong>Antiphon</strong> provide another solid groove in <em>Spartan</em>. Antiphon are a trio between Horatio Luna (again), <strong>Cory Balloch</strong> and drummer <strong>Matt Bush</strong>. I love the bouncy bass playing on this track. <em>The Return Of Electric John</em> by <strong>Foshe</strong> is a personal highlight. With its tight drums and bass, distant piano stabs and dreamy pads. If this didn’t have drum kit and a kick instead it’d be a deep house track a-la <strong>Larry Heard</strong>. <strong>Proto Moro</strong> comes through with the most disco-inflected tune of the bunch. The dubby production is great on this, as well as the horns and flute! <strong>Big Chief </strong>(still another Horatio Luna project) ends proceedings with the beautiful slow burner <em>Later That Day</em>.</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>It's always interesting when jazz musicians lean into more dancefloor oriented music. Like Brisbane’s <strong>Middle Name Dance Band</strong> or this compilation's musical director <strong>Horatio Luna</strong> (whose influence is, as I think we've established, everywhere here). If you were ever worried about jazz disappearing into its ivory tower, then downundaground is, without once being cheesy, obvious or intellectually insulting putting the grooves there and making them immediately accessible.</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>- Hillfolk.</span></span></p>
<iframe style="border: 0; width: 100%; height: 120px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=4190509359/size=large/bgcol=f…; seamless><a href="http://lasape.bandcamp.com/album/downundaground">downundaground by Various Artists</a></iframe>