First let me start by giving probs to Funk Night’s Frank Raines for hipping me to this album. It takes a good ear to hip another good ear to something worth giving a full listen to. What we have here is the sharp as a sword new LP from LTF that crosses the boundaries of Jazz and Hip Hop in a way that’s totally new and unique from any previous hybrids that we’ve come across. Both genres have been highly influential amongst musicians and it’s reaches stretch far and wide is is the case with this album put together by Anton Ivanchenko who resides in the southwestern Siberian city of Omsk who has been obsessed with funk, hip-hop, and b-boy culture since the ‘90s.
“Jazz Echo simmers with the bebop attitude of its namesake, brimming with heavy bass riffs, crucial breakbeats, truncated vinyl exclamations, and an adept ear for melody. The ‘echo’ could be the time travel partaken with the album’s disparate sound sources. With fastidious regional crate-digging, LTF discovered many obscurities for his samples and constructions. “You search for the records and listen to them all day,” LTF explains. “And then you find yourself not listening to the music, but you’re listening to the musicians separated from one another. The more you listen, the more greedy you become for the sound that was born to be found and reimagined. That’s the trip. And this trip flows through the jazz records of Soviet Russia and Eastern Europe.”
“Among Jazz Echo’s many highlights is “Ritual,” showcasing LTF’s contrabass prowess and an arrangement that confidently sits beside the ‘70s jazz-funk classics. There’s “Spacebop,” combining a vintage sound with modern production techniques and the flutterings of a dusty Soviet-era synthesizer. A cosmic interpretation of the ‘quiet storm,’ played over some serious beats, manifests in “Meteo,” while “Release Your Reflection” fills every available sonic space with orchestral flourishes, heavy drums, and a helping of space echo and mind-expanding effects.”
