GILLES PETERSON & LIONEL LOUEKE
HH Reimagined (Edition)
Meet West African guitarist Lionel Loueke, emotional-jazz expert. Then introduce his mentor, Herbie Hancock, who inspired Loueke’s album HH – a tribute to the legendary pianist’s compositions. And then throw Gilles Peterson, French-born DJ, into the mix. What do you get when you mix all these together? HH Reimagined, an oddball of an album.
The recreational record from the duo takes the already-joyful HH into an electronic-jolted wonderland, though at times nothing similar to the original. One Finger Snap’s initial, sinister-sounding guitar riff transforms into a repetitive dance track, complete with echoing robotic vocals. Watermelon Man starts off with an underwater type distortion, leading into pounding warped drums and alien sound-effects. The pick of the bunch for me is Tell Me A Bedtime Story, an eight-minute assortment of jungle bird-caws, industrial clangs and warming riffs. An eccentric, exotic record, all in all.
words INDIA MUNDAY
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