Magic Malik - Short Cuts (2011) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

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Magic Malik - Short Cuts (2011) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

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Magic Malik - Short Cuts (2011)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time - 65:55 minutes | 684 MB
Studio Master, Official Digital Download | Artwork: Digital booklet

Eccentric flutist and untamable vocalist, Magic Malik who initiated a musical system based on the “XPs” obtained in 2011 a residency at the Villa Medicis to work on composition, research and improvisation. But before getting to this point Malik Mezzadri made his name by taking part in some of the most remarkable bands from the last fifteen years. Since his beginning with the band Human Spirit and the Julien Lourau’s Groove Gang until his more recent collaborations with Aka Moon or the collective Octurn, Malik always preferred the organization of a band rather than being a leader surrounded by sidemen.

When his first album under the name Magic Malik Orchestra got released, HWI Project (1997) and 69 96 (2000), we were not surprised to come across some of his former partners such as Denis Guivarc’h or Minino Garay.

Among the decisive meeting he had, the one with Steve Coleman is to be remembered, indeed, the saxophone player and founder of the M-Base is certainly the one with whom he shares his taste for complex rhythm entanglement.

Still his influence on Malik is hard to be estimated but these kinds of meetings were definitely precious. “Those various ventures allowed me to go forward” said Malik “ it’s often by conveying ideas to others musicians that those ideas took a real shape and became personals concepts”. If the dialogue naturally established itself between Malik and jazzmen such as Nelson Veras and Pierrick Pedron, he also took part in more unexpected concepts at the boundaries between pop or electro music with M, Bumcello, Camille, Troublemakers, Hocus Pocus or Air.

With time passing by, collective projects were put aside to focus on the establishment of a personal and innovating repertoire based on the “XPs” concept. Those “experimentations” involving a formal and minimalist approach of the rhythm are at the foundation of the records “00-237 / XP 1” (2003), “13 XP Song’s Book” (2004), “XP 2” (2005) and “Saoule” (2008).

His music is inspired by grooves by Miles Davis from the early 70s but also by the guitarist Pat Metheny meticulous work.

While Malik has been struggling between two attitudes: one more conceptual and the other more accessible, his arriving at Bee Jazz enabled him to reconnect with a kind of immediacy, an evidence. Short Cuts his new record seems to be the result of an aesthetic contemplations (a painting by Paul Klee for instance) or a chord randomly played on the piano: “Sometimes, I only tried to follow the thread an idea that was given to me” he adds “then lead the idea without interfering on the first run-up by giving the minimum intellectual control”.

There is no doubt indeed about the fact that the streamlined and repetitive track Pop is the result of this instinctive approach. It’s also noticeable through the powerful bass line in the track Botswana, or the urban pulse of Jungle, or even in the track Amerigo built on a single fragment of a Bach cello suite.

Throughout the album, Malik cares to alternate his flute parts and his atmospheric vocals with a virtuosity that stresses the magnetism. Members of his quartet – Jozef Dumoulin (keyboards, effects programming), Jean-Luc Lehr (electric bass) and Maxime Zampieri (drums) – fulfill themselves in his universe as well as the composer Gilbert Nouno