Review Summary: Skalpel creates excellent jazz music derivative of the Polish jazz scene. However, this is no jazz band but a trip-hop duo. Despite being simply DJs, their overall product grooves like a live jazz group and possibly better than some live groups.
Skalpel is a trip-hop outfit that primarily uses samples from the 60s and 70s Polish jazz scene. Wait, what? Since when has there been a Polish jazz scene? Jazz being a primarily American art form, nothing out of Europe really takes prevalence in jazz history, but oh yes, there was a Polish jazz scene. No one has any information about it or any prevalent artists, but seriously, it existed. Lush and cold keyboards, funky guitars, wailing saxophones, it’s all here. Really, the Polish jazz scene, at least in how Skalpel conveys it, is the perfect blend of the 50s and early 60s cool jazz and jazz fusion. Skalpel just belongs in a cool, quiet jazz club. Quietly, the “band” grooves along with groovy jazz beats from the drums and very creative baselines. However, the most remarkable aspect of Skalpel is that they really are a trip-hop duo of two DJs, Marcin Cichy and Igor Pudło. Never have samples interlaced and fit together so perfectly. This music sounds easily like a true jazz group. Saxophone samples quietly sing their simple melodies and at some points the samples actually take a solo that sounds improvised.
Skalpel sits on the Ninja Tune label, no surprise as they fall in line with the “nu-jazz” movement sweeping across Northern Europe, led by bands like
The Cinematic Orchestra and
Jaga Jazzist. However, Skalpel is slowly becoming one of the label’s premiere acts. Their musical formula could easily enchant listeners all around the nation. It’s catchy, relaxing, and interesting all at the same time, with the intricate drum grooves and the irresistible basslines often featured like on
Flying Officer. The whole melodic theme of the song is a poppy bassline played on upright bass. The song continually layers and layers, with great forte-pianos from saxophones and a perfect drum groove. Eventually, a furious tenor sax sample wails over everything, sounding like a solo at first, but then later develops into simply a more intricate and rhythmically complex melodic idea. When the song repeats itself, it simply creates more effect with Latin congas and even more intensity from the bass. The drum beat continues to impress, extremely creative rhythmically.
While
Flying Officer is a showcase of the band’s more grooving style, the title track
Konfusion shows off the band’s use of sparseness and simplicity to create an even more relaxing style. The song opens with very little sense of time and the only constant is a conga roll. The rest of the samples play a simple rhythmic idea. That idea expands further as a full drum beat enters and a funky chord accents here and there. There is melody, a saxophone melody adds in later, but the cymbal-heavy groove from the drums and main rhythmic idea makes the song for what it is. In the middle of the song, everything restarts again, with a sleazy shaker and sparse saxophone. The song builds over another rhythmic idea, this one much more groovy and intricate. Keep in mind; this is two DJs with only samples at their disposal creating these grooves. The slight groove change, which only happens for a short amount of time, comes across perfectly with no glitches or problems.
The real problem, however, lies in variety. With those two styles, the entire album is pretty much described. The overall tonality of the songs sounds essentially the same, with no real change in intensity or even tempo.
Wooden Toy picks things up a bit, sounding a bit more electronica-based than most of the album. The song is certainly the coldest on the album, but still, the bass and drum style in the songs is just all too familiar by that point.
Test Drive contains the catchiest and best horn licks on the album, a much brassier statement than the typical saxophone-heavy melodies on the album. Saxophone appears in an interlude, breaking up the main melody, but the horns easily steal the show. A more rock-styled guitar plays a simple riff that sets up a nice groove for the horns. Songs with bigger, more powerful trumpet hits would increase the variety and impact of the album tenfold. The drum grooves, while all fantastic and creative, need to step away from the Latin-influenced acid jazz style of the entire album. The bass stands out on the entire album, creating melodic lines as well as laying down a great groove and locking in with drums. However, variety stands out as Skalpel’s tragic flaw. Listening to a few Skalpel tracks is some of the most enjoyable listening out there today, but after a few tracks, the music gets old fast. Maybe Skalpel needs to look outside of their home country of Poland. Regardless, the two DJs manage to put together fantastic jazz music out of samples, rivaling the connection and groove between some live jazz groups. It will be exciting to see where they head next.
Recommended Tracks:
Flying Officer
Deep Breath
Test Drive
Wooden Toy
btw i addedd you to my list
