Jazzanova - The Return

Why hasn't anyone heard of Jazzanova? I know, I know, this is my second column about them in almost as many months. But I just purchased The Remixes 1997-2000, and my CD player has not been able to part with it for weeks now. Maybe a review of it will serve as a kind of exorcism, and make way for another album in my boom box.

In case you don't know, (and you probably don't, unless you're from either Munich, Berlin, or Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where the people seem to know everything about good music) Jazzanova are a DJ collective comprised of six men with entertaining names like Jurgen von Knoblauch and Roskoe Kretschmann. They began playing and remixing records together in 1995. They describe their music as a hybrid of jazz, bossanova, (hence the name) soul, disco, R&B, and a little bit of everything else. They radically reinvent other artists' tracks, giving them the unique Jazzanova sound.

If I have any complaint about this album, it's that the aforesaid sound can get a bit samey. As background music, it's peppered with standout moments where you lean in and listen, curious to hear exactly what's going on. If you're playing it on your Discman/Walkman/MP3 player, you might find yourself skipping some tracks.

The two-CD set starts off with 4 Hero's We Who Are Not As Others. Eerie synth chimes immediately give you the feeling that what you're about to listen to is going to kick ass. It does, but with a whisper, not a scream. Jazzanova turn the track into what sounds like a robot band playing fusion. It's calm, intricate, and undeniably electronic.

Marschmellows' Soulpower is pure pop-funk, complete with slap-bassline, hand-claps, and squelching synths. They even break it down and add whooshing Seventies sounds at the end. Jazzanova manage to replicate an entire decade's worth of music in one song, and still make it their own cool blend.

Truby Trio's Carajillo melds Afro-pop with drum-pad beats and a simple, jazzy house piano line. The singers' voices call and answer to each other. It's music you want to turn up full volume and clamp headphones over your ears, but it's also perfect as background.

High Priestess, by Karma, has a big-band-shuffle feel that swings even when it turns into a bongo-ridden ¾ voodoo beat. Lazy upright bass and blasts of brass punctuate this swampy mire till it sounds like there's a full-on tribal ritual going on somewhere in the bayou. Every so often the heat breaks, but it always comes back full force before long.

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