Thing of the Day

SKALPEL MAN UNDER SIEGE

NOVEMBER 29th 2010

 Album: IGOR BOXX – Breslau (Ninja Tune)  
Igor Boxx, he of Skalpel, with a rather delightfully intriguing solo album. Breslau is an album that demands your ears from the off with those darkly angelic opening textures, those sinister church organ sounds that clearly are something a little more than your average harmless church…

That church organ leads us to some leftfield fusion flavoured jazz and some mellow beats that skip in their own rather different way… and we’re off journeying along the different roads of Igor Boxx’s debut solo album. Says here on this press release that comes with the record so people like me can clue up on the facts and make out like we know what we’re talking about, that the inspiration once more comes from his home country and specifically the 1945 siege of Breslau by the Red Army, sounds depicting the massive force and fury of the Bolsheviks’ attacks and the determination of the terrorized civil population of the city to hold on.. Sounds like a slightly sinister underground jazz party drinking den at the end of time to these ears. 

Strange beats, jazzy trip-hop, meaty kraut rock, big slices of genuinely progressive prog - a passing voice just asked if this was the Dust Brothers, I guess that should be taken as a compliment by Igor Boxx, also known as Igor Pudlo when in Poland’s acclaimed Skalpel. Sounds like walking around slightly strange environments on a rather happy day to me, no siege, just strange walls to look over, intriguing basements to explore… Dust Brothers, that sinister feel John Carpenter conjures – I guess that is the siege scene? 

The urban jazz of Mike Westbrook, leftfield beats, flowing hums, warm vibrancy and all the time, with all the mood shifts and the different places we explore, always keeping an inviting compelling intrigue that demands the album stays on repeat for days at a time without ever becoming mere background music. Not sure if we can hear Stalin’s organs or a doomed city burning, this dance macabre sounds more like something more welcoming to be around.

Breslau is released today. More from www.ninjatune.net
http://www.myspace.com/igorboxx.