Unknown Mortal Orchestra – IC -O “Bogota: :: Ondarock reviews

The New Zealand Band changes register again for a project that explores the Jazz Fusion of the late 70s with funeral raids and Cosmic-Jazz lands.
“IC-O” Bogota “is the second entirely instrumental album for the formation of Ruban Nielson, a sequence of long jam session They offer space and relief to the new element, the keyboardist Christian Li, and to an exceptional guest: the percussionist José David Infante.

The pre-eminent role of the guitar was set aside, which had distinguished the first instrumental chapter “IC-01 Hanoi”, the Unknown Morther Orchestra lingers in full-bodied and dynamic environmental sounds, but the result appears devoid of those flickers that Ruban Nielson distributed equally in previous discs.
“Earth1” and “Earth 5” are intriguing, but in the long run boring and faded. The version lo-fi Of the fusion put in place by the New Zealand formation, it does not work entirely: those who have absorbed and listened to the huge mass of jazz-rock production of the 80s and 90s will find very little to save in “IC-O” Bogota “. Even the dreamy and relaxing” Heaven 7 “leaves the bitter in the mouth and is appreciated only for the timbre call to the German electronic school.

Without a doubt some ideas mentioned in “Earth 1” are potential ideas for evolutions to follow and the more trait Psych-oriented of the fourteen minutes of “Underworld 6” is incandescent. The audio collage is stimulating, but everything sounds in the end as a free wheel experiment that as far as it can be useful to understand the future moves of the Unknown Morther Orchestra, risks being appreciated more for mountain programming than for the actual final outcome.
“IC-O” Bogota “is a decidedly interlocutory chapter: the eleven minutes of the aforementioned” Earth 1 “remain the only worthy mention, too little to be able to invite a re-listening.

23/04/2025