Words by Justin Turford
Move 78 create differently. Blurring the lines between live musical interaction and technology, their music is both spontaneous and calculated. The final recordings they produce are the result of an artistic process that has mirrors in visual art disciplines where the end only fully emerges after repeated expressionistic invention, erasure and addition. Imagine clay or paint being manipulated, torn away and reshaped until the artist says ‘enough’. The band’s name itself has a suitably esoteric origin - named after “a famous Go match (an ancient Chinese board game) between Lee Sedol, the world champion of Go at the time, and a computer program named AlphaGo. Having been defeated in the first three games of the five-game match by his AI-powered opponent, Sedol stunned spectators and commentators by adapting and playing a move so strange that it completely baffled AlphaGo and its algorithms, leading the program to scramble for historical data to make sense of it. The move – which represented Sedol’s human response adapting to meet the challenges of an ever-evolving technological world – was move 78.”
With a core group of highly trained Berlin-based jazz musicians on keys, bass, brass and drums, and UK hip-hop producer Aver as their live and studio producer, the Move 78 modus operandi is to jam and improvise in rehearsal studios or at live gigs where Aver samples and reprocesses back into the greater sound, a highwire act that results in real time harmonic cohesion and further recorded material to be utilised and played with in the recording studio.
“Grains” is the third studio album by Move 78 and despite my convoluted explanation of their methodology and the record’s eighteen month incubation, the album sounds surprisingly organic but with a lot of processing thrown into the mix. The first side of the record (when listened to on vinyl) comes across more like a suite of connected ideas, the darkly cinematic tracks merging into each other when listened to in its entirety. It isn’t easy to disentangle where the live performance and the studio trickery separate to be honest, one exception being the last track of side one (and the first single from the album) ‘Regular Groove’. The song vibes along with a cheeky jazz-funk swing, it’s whip-smart drum groove and growing narcotic mood sounding like something from Mo’ Wax’s 90s’ golden era before it collapses into itself under the weight of the delays and FX.
The opening composition ‘Unfolding Forms’ is a stunning beginning to the album, with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra’s A.J. Nilles’ groaning viola (plus synths?) and ethereal wordless vocals from singer Douniah the heart of this evocative piece. There’s some lovely acoustic guitar work amongst the atmospheric pressure with just a sprinkle of whatever witchcraft Sigur Rós mess with. Beautiful.
The unhurried title track ‘Grains’ is a moody piano led composition with soporific horns, sat back drums and a prodding dubby bass line. Distressed wind instruments cloud its upper reaches while the delicate piano moans with solitude.
Echo-delayed drums and horns kick off the spacey oddball funk of ‘Technologies Of Freedom’, multiple layers of synths and washed out noises adding a thriller film edge as Nir Sabag’s drums and Hal Strewe’s excellent bass playing gets progressively funkier and wilder. Props to producer Aver for keeping the mix’s clarity as he overloads the circuits!
The drum & bass influenced ‘Neuralgia’ is another slow-burning piece of cinematic dread with arching strings, elongated horn parts and a low end funk. Thick coats of synths and keyboards provide the narrative.
Onto side two, ‘Feed Them To The Machine’ tears along with frenetic drums in a post-punk-electronica vein, with slow-moving synths and heavily processed vocals and horns entering and exiting from all angles and a late guitar riff that cuts through like a sword; there’s a buzzing live energy to this one.
The brightly toned brass overload of ‘D.O.T.S’ features Aquiles Navarro from the brilliant American free jazz collective Irreversible Entanglements on trumpet, and is a heady combination of melancholia and exuberance that builds to an explosive overspill at the end.
‘Storms Of Our Grandchildren’ closes the album in a similar vibe to how it started. Psychedelic and drenched in atmosphere but darker in hue as the discordant strings and falling synths fight with each other. Digital bubbles, drones and flutters of flute and piano add confusing harmony before the song peters away to silence.
It’s got peculiar moods but I really enjoyed ‘Grains’. The music clearly speaks the language of jazz but there’s also psychedelia, European soundtrack composition and even some of the resonances of certain ‘Krautrock’ bands in its FX heavy wavy funk.
Atmospheric and enveloping, Move 78’s third album is well worth repeated listening and I hope to catch their unique live experience at some point in the future. 9/10.
The album is scheduled for release on vinyl & digital via Village Live Records on Friday 3rd November 2023.
BUY HERE! https://move78.bandcamp.com/album/grains