Buttering Trio - Jam [Raw Tapes Records Promo]

Recording a whole album within a three days session is quite an achievement, even a bigger one when the session is a flowing freestyle jam taking place without any song layouts or pre-sketched ideas brought into it. Tricky circumstances as such and a challenge for sure which was accepted by the Israeli band outfit Buttering Trio in November 2013 but things became even trickier and more intense when Palestinian barrages hit Israel and were answered by air raids immediately at the time the session took place. That said it's quite astounding how calm, jazzy and laid back the result of this session turns out to be, rightly named "Jam" after its initial approach and pleasing the audiences ears with a bunch of eleven tracks now put on the circuit via Raw Tapes Records. Starting of with a vintage synth twisting NuSoul jam - "Circles" -, exploring the sweetest, vocal driven DeepHouse grooves in the future classic  "I Cried For You" and turning heads towards slow-motion, Tango Noir-influenced, highly dramatic Downtempo with the super eccentric "Master Of Rockets" the first three tracks unveil the broad and impressive musical variety of the stylistic range covered by Buttering Trio which masterfully manage to incorporate influences like Scandinavian Skweee or Westlondon Phusion into their musical spectrum as well, creating a wide, organic and lovingly embracing cosmos that surely appeals to an audience from everyone being fond of Compost Records' seminal "Future Sound Of Jazz"-series, to followers of labels eclectic as Tru Thoughts, those blessed with a reliable sense of style like Hamburg's Lounge Records or Legere Recordings and those being pleased by the works of DJs like Gilles Peterson and his Brownswood Recordings, Bugge Wesseltoft and - last but not least - the pioneering works of the original Mojo Club . And although some of the tunes on "Jam" might be suited into a high quality, advanced lounge concept it is tunes like the short "Juno Juno" that perfectly showcase that the Buttering Trio is way more than just that by incorporating well-quirky, tongue-in-cheek synth sounds and psyched out Dub FX whilst the following, dolorous Jazz melancholia of "Window 04" seems to be a sweet on-repeat compagnon on a cold winter night in front of an open fire, sipping on some proper port. More deep melancholia strikes with "What It Madness", this time accompanied and nicely contrasted by mad'n'rhythmic white noise cut ups, a thrilling Funk bass and dark rumbling beats best played throughout the second half of the night to a Dub-aware crowd of advanced punters looking for something special. Finally we see "What Your Waiting For" amalgamating the Skweee with NuSoul and - again - twisted Dub, proving that the bands members have got a healthy sense of humour by altering and shifting the vocalists voice, sending it to outer space and back without losing the soul aspect lieing within. Nicely done, check this.