Iceland has been experiencing recently volcanic eruptions across the Reykjanes peninsula. This new album – an on-the-fly collaboration between Icelandic musicians and established jazz fusion titans – also seeks to disturb the jazz tectonic plates. Jack Magnet Science is described as “the latest endeavor in the rolodex of multi-hyphenism” from keyboardist and music producer Jakob Magnússon and fellow band members from Stuðmenn. The album title is an allusion to ” the band’s admiration for Magnússon’s fascinating environmental work background that includes developing a weather control device with British scientists that has been successfully used for years at various musical festivals.”
What caught the eye were his collaborators: Peter Erskine (drummer for jazz fusion pioneers Weather Report) and Matthew Garrison (formerly with Weather Report founder Joe Zawinul’s Syndicate). Weather Report shaped the jazz fusion genre and arguably set the standard for what followed, so I was certainly curiously to see what they’d produce.The project also brings in Siggi Baldursson (of The Sugarcubes, former band of Björk) and Einar Scheving on percussion and Eythor Gunnarsson, founder member of one of Iceland’s biggest exports Mezzoforte (a guilt-free ‘guilty pleasure’ of mine) on keyboards.
The album is unusual, dynamic, almost chaotic at times: it’s definitely attempting to plough a new furrow in the crowded – sometimes unfairly maligned – genre of jazz fusion.
The opening track Dreams of Delphi has echoey trumpets and harmonica (which combine well) over a shuffling rhythm that’s peppy and foot-tap inducing, really pushing the track along at pace. Another element of the JMS sound is vocalist Ragga (no surname provided) whose style – suggestive at times of classical Hindustani singing – Erskine says remind him of Wayne Shorter. While certainly expressive and unusual, I found the drone style a little overpowering on Extra-Polation and other tracks. ITSYAMO is a lively sax-led composition, light and airy, with a summery feel (and here, Ragga’s vocals works well), which switches things up bringing in the keyboards and what sounds like electronic woodwind.
ReAct opens with just Erskine’s tight drumming – brilliant stuff – and Ragga’s deep vocals leading to a belting refrain, with ethereal keyboard sounds pushing the track to a nice conclusion.
Ruptures provides a change of pace, with sax and keys floating over minimal percussion and in between more unusual vocals.
Space Pasadena has Erskine using a distinct drum sound (snare with snares off, I guess) that cuts through tremendously and the track itself trips along well, getting interesting when the electronic woodwind joins the melody alongside the saxophone. The band leaves their strongest track – Wild Card – to the end. It’s a great sign off: propulsive drums, Wayne Shorter-ish sax flights of fancy and more weird trumpet sounds.The album was recorded at Floki Studios in the sparse north of the island and there is certainly a rawness to the tracks, all of which came out of a sustained three day jam session.
The final sound, however, took months of over-dubbing and editing, so it has a collage feel to it which keeps the listener on edge, even though as a result it does lacks the sort of polish that turns a good album into a great one. This free and easy approach is brave and there’s plenty here to get your teeth into. Ultimately, it feels like an album that’s best listened to live, as an experience. It has its debut at the Reykjavik Arts Festival this weekend.
