Tunnel & Meadow - I [Umland Records 051]

Forthcoming on Essen's ever active Umland Records imprint in March, 2k22 is "I", the aptly named first album by the newly formed quartet  that is Tunnel & Meadow. Comprised of Jan Klare, Serge Corteyn, Johannes Nebel and Marvin Blamberg the four piece caters a menu of four extended compositions laid out over the course of roughly 45 minutes, focusing on a musical approach of a sustained repetition of certain musical phrases to create a well hypnotic stream of spiralling loops of varying intensity and slowly morphing dynamics, starting off with what could be described as a driving JazzFunk vibe in the opening cut "Saas Fee" which is intriguing enough to get hold of the entire album as a whole. Furthermore, the subsequent "Livigno" dives deep into naturalistic and enchanted flute loops paired with plucked guitar improvisations and slightly fever'ish, ritualistic drums, "Zermatt" weighs in a full on big band approach which is well astounding as there are only four musicians pulling this stunt of creating a hyper-dense, demanding and multi-layered, yet somewhat comforting late night vibe off whereas the closing cut that is "Davos" rounds things of in a much more light-hearted Jazz manner that's able to immediately set dancefloors in motion due to its highly seductive and uplifting pull. Great stuff, this. Not only for die hard Jazz headz but for any connaisseur of organic, yet spine tingling instrumental music.

Album artwork on Instagram