Vortex on line -

JUNE 2006
PINSKI ZOO After Image Slam CD 266

At once a celebration of 25 years of operations in the 'power fusion/free funk' corner of the jazz world and a distillation of their live sound into 143 minutes of recorded music, this double CD is as close to a definitive Pinski Zoo album as you're likely to get. It contains two storming versions each of anthemic live staples such as 'Bounce', 'Firepoint' and 'Please Note', but also captures the band's subtler strengths: an attention to textural variation and nuances of timbre (especially from keyboardist Steve Iliffe, but also from the alternately stridently keening and multi-textured, almost Barbieriesque Jan Kopinski) that would not be out of place on a Weather Report or Joe Zawinul Syndicate album; a predilection for rubato musings where bassist Karl Bingham's unshowy virtuosity comes into its own; an ability to sustain hypnotically regular beats (courtesy of 'new' member Stefan Kopinski and industrial-strength drummer Steve Harris) without losing tension; a control of dynamic variation that results in the climaxes seeming earned by, rather than gratuitously imposed on, the music.

In short, as well as being one of the most viscerally exciting live acts currently operating, Pinski Zoo are a mature musical unit, and should be given credit for spearheading what is becoming an increasingly important and popular jazz movement, creating space for such contemporary bands as Led Bib and Fraud.

Chris Parker