Words by Justin Turford

1. Start without a plan

2. Make mistakes

3. Recognize the meta level & identify the vibe

4. Exaggerate it

Not quite the detail of Peter Schmidt and Brian Eno’s 100 strong set of ‘Oblique Strategies’ cards but as a simple guide to creating, I’m a fan of Ali Dada’s four steps. Ambiguous and not without courage, the Swiss trio of Orlando Ludens (guitar & ambient soundscapes), Rulla (beats and field recordings) and Max Licht (brass and trombone) take the musical ‘jam’ as their loose foundation stone, the collective experimentation somehow resulting in a cohesive, even mellow album of odd moods and soundscapes. Mistakes, glitches, limitations and luck are all part of most musician’s experience (they just don’t all admit it) but Ali Dada seems to be most comfortable in this seat-of-the-pants zone.

“The songs often emerge from imperfect elements or mistakes, like from a loop or glitch. or something I played that wasn’t quite clean and building on that becomes the challenge” - Orlando

Dada in their name and perhaps Dada in spirit they are but the opening track on ‘SUM’ doesn’t really exemplify the casual art perversity of Marcel Duchamp and Co. Quite the opposite, ‘Abolish The Police’ is a beautifully horizontal jazz-inflected number, more in spirit with the romantic grey clouds of Scandinavian jazz than the mortified galleries of a century ago. Field recordings, the breathiest of brass, ukulele by Sofia Sturm and a lovely lullaby vocal from the hilariously named Häuserfrau lends this militantly titled track a pastoral vibe.

Not everything is so sweet-natured. A filmic quality is present on many of the tracks, not just because they are mainly instrumentals but due to a pervasive mood of noirish tension. ‘Start’ has a boom bap squidgy thing going on, a wonky synth solo and a growling bottom end suggesting dread. The surfy Morricone guitar certainly hammers it further home.

The wobbly reggae of ‘Sum’ has a little bit of Fat Freddy’s Drop about it. Spacious and airy, those barely blown horns again and some sweetly loose guitar interplay give this a calming ambience befitting a B Side version on a seven inch.

Stand up bass and various horns take the central roles on ‘Bern’, another film noir interlude that travels from a dark Central European night to a desert burial; Tex-Mex guitars and effectively simple drums lending the tune an early Herbaliser flavour.

Ali Dada in the studio - Photo by Ali Dada

‘Ohnedi’ plays with a light electronic touch. A strangely angular but catchy synth riff, more spare blunted beats and heavily reverbed slide guitar take their unhurried time before some deliciously layered vocals from Häuserfrau, cracked harp and synth pads break the moment temporarily before they return to sender.

The vocal sample featured in the crunchy ‘Tone Print’ is snaffled (with permission) from a tutorial by Psychedelic Tim about the guitar pedal "Tone Print". A tough old school hip hop loop and plenty of psychey guitar fretwork illuminate the vocal. Very mid 90s trip hop machinations going on here.

‘Arriv’ rolls in a similar vein to ‘Ohnedi’. They may well create using mistakes and chaos as markers but Ali Dada’s music on ‘SUM’ doesn’t sound chaotic. In the main, the sound is very clean and spare, one can hear everything as though each note or beat has intention. Personally, I’d like to hear a bit more Dada-esque wildness on some of the tracks although I do like it's cinema scope emptiness.

The feminist activist and scholar Silvia Federici is the inspiration for the fuzz guitar led ‘Federici’, a simple loop that gets heavier and more hazy as it grooves along.

This album of late night slumbers ends with its most ambient moment. ‘Ui’ is glacial jazz-hop with a Sa-Ra electronic heart and great use of Auto-Tune on the wordless vocals of the enigmatic Häuserfrau. More of this please!

Trip hop is back (alongside massive trousers) and ‘SUM’ is deeply reminiscent of its 90s heyday. Atmospheric and unobtrusive, the album definitely works best as a whole, a togetherness of ideas pulled delicately from, I presume, nocturnal musical gatherings. The incense is strong on this one. 8/10

BUY HERE! https://alidada.bandcamp.com/album/sum