John zorn - O'o [Tzadik - 2009] | Named after a now extinct Hawaiian bird ‘O'o’ finds John Zorn offering up another laid-back, memorable & easy listening focused collection of tracks that take in elements of: exotica ,surf, light melodic jazz, mellow soundtracks & all manner of laid-back, tuneful & sometimes lightly dramatic music. The twelve tracks that make up ‘O'o’ near on hours running time are played by the same band that played on Zorn’s last purely easy listening focusing album the excellent 2008 ‘The Dreamers’. The band consists of many long term Zorn collaborators with Joey Baron on Drums, Marc Ribot on Guitars, Jamie Saft on Keyboards, Trevor Dunn on Bass, Cyro Baptista on Percussion and Kenny Wollesen on Vibes. ‘O'o’ follows on from ‘The Dreamers’ template in it’s mixture of easy-listening fair, but it also sees Zorn extending his sonic genre pallet, as well as giving the tracks often an more dramatic & dynamic feel . You get elements of Masada like Jewish melodies making there way into a few tracks, as well as darts down cinematic jazzy piano ally-ways, or building & moody pop rock work-outs, onto bubble gum lite 80’s post -punk bass lined vibe lit grooves. Each track here nicely captures it’s own vibe & atmosphere, yet it also weaves well into fabric of the whole album to give a nicely blanced & wholly enjoyable ride through-out. As with ‘The Dreamers’ the packaging is something rather special & colourful with the cd coming in a glossy mini gatefold featuring muit-coloured drawings of various wild birds in trippy & cartoon like psychedelic backdrops. Also in the gatefold is a rather charming 40 page black & white sketchbook that offers up wonderful pencil drawings of various exotic sounding birds- all this of adds nicely to sonics inside & gives the whole thing a nice classy air. Put simply this is just a great collection of melodic, passionately played & perfectly executed instrumental music, all topped off with a great & colourful packaging. Roger Batty
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