What’s on – across Europe

Nabou, Indigo, Edition ***1/2

Indigo gets a little more experimental on ‘Lost Soul’ and that aspect of this quartet album from Belgian trombonist Nabou Claerhout lifts all this out of the ordinary.

The more swinging hard bop trombone approach (Paul Dunlea), funky (Dennis Rollins, Fred Wesley) or especially most of all clubby nu jazz (Noushy, Liam Shortall/corto.alto) kind certainly project more driving energy if compared against the much more chamber jazz direction that Nabou prefers.

Indigo locates a different space entirely and doesn’t rely on fixed grooves or expansive vamps. That’s to its credit. But there’s an intense introspective scrutiny to the care taken on the second of the 3 ‘Echo’ tracks where multi-tracking adds a certain intensity that can take time to adjust to.

And yet lightness does intervene to extricate all this from being too gloomy and overly dystopian. So, ‘Johanna’ led by bassist Trui Amerlinck is more upbeat. And yet, frustratingly, the tune ultimately doesn’t develop enough. And that is a problem with some of the material: pieces open interestingly but often lack an ability to push their message home enough.

Where Indigo does work better is when the main foil guitarist Gijs Idema is more prominent – and Idema takes a handsome solo on ‘Ruin & Redemption’ if proof of this is what you’re after. On the same track the drummer (Daniel Jonkers) at last makes his presence really felt.

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