Simon Camatta - This Is Not A Solo Record [Umland Records 054]

Coming in via mail from the headquarters of the Essen-based Umland Records recently and set for release in January 2k22 is the aptly named album "This Is Not A Solo Record", the new musical outing by the labels head honcho Simon Camatta who, in cooperation with a bunch of artists closely associated with the label collective like St. Kirchhoff, Moritz Anthes and others, creates a 13 + 2 bonus cuts spanning body of work whose combined tracklist forms the phrase "I / Find / Myself / In / The / Density / Of / Our / Collective / Conscience / By / Getting / To / Know / You" which in itself points towards a slighty conceptual approach when it comes to the meta thought and idea behind this longplayer. Rolled out over the course of roughly 45 minutes the album covers recordings, compositions and improvisations captured and conceived over a six months period, being intended as a documentation of the artists life covering live recordings from shows as well as improvised solos, solo pieces put together in the studio x rehearsal room a well as a variety of Field Recordings with the musical range spanning from muffled, defragmented, complex and probably digitally processed drum solos to heavy, Funk-infused Dope Beats ("Find") perfectly suitable for a live Rap x HipHop session to hard hitting, fever'ish and ritualistic madness for whirling - and breakdancing! - dervish ppl in a trance ("Myself"). Furthermore included are a hidden, yet captivating and dancefloor destroying tribute to M.I.A. to be found in "In" with its retrofuturistic bleep and modular madness, more HipHop-infused battle cuts ("Density" / "Collective" / "By"), scratch improvisations executed by Vincent Von Schlippenbach atop of Camatta's loose, jazzy and free-floating drum rolls ("Conscience") as well as even TexMex- / Psychedelia-infused elements to be found in "Getting" amongst many a goodness more. Defo an interesting piece, this, catering both to the beat heads and purists as well as to an audience deeply entrenched in more improvised, non-structurally confined music.