Shining - 2011 Live Blackjazz

Band : Shining

Album : Blackjazz
Release Year : 2010

Genre : Progressive | Black Metal | Jazz | Experimental

Tracklist :
01. Fisheye
02. In The Kingdom Of Kitsch You Will Be A Monster
03. The Red Room
04. Omen
05. Goretex Weather Report
06. Winterreise
07. Exit Sun
08. HEALTER SKELTER
09. 21st Century Schizoid Man

Shining has turned into one of the most visionary music machines in Norway. They excelled with their recent album Blackjazz, since it surprised many of the band’s followers as it left the band’s jazz roots and instead focused on their own brand of blackened jazz metal. This change has now been documented on their concert album Live Blackjazz. As the title suggests, the setlist focuses on their latest studio offering, but it also shows off concert versions of some of the tracks from their two previous records: 2005′s In The Kingdom Of Kitsch You Will Be A Monster and 2007′s Grindstone.

The band was initially intended to be a vehicle for Jørgen Munkeby when he left the nu-jazz Norwegian wündergroup Jaga Jazzist. Shining have enjoyed a diverse string of releases, adapting their sounds to the different companies who have released their records; where Jazzland brought out Coltrane-isms, Rune Grammofon explored Zappa atmospheres, Mingus movements, and King Crimson invocations. Infernal merchants Indie Recordings have been lucky enough to present the band’s latest dress change into sinister ministers of an all-new brand of metal. Today, Shining fuses the industrial darkness of Ministry and Nine Inch Nails with jaw-dropping jazz and noise music.

Inspired and adventurous, the band is tight as can be. The rhythm section of bassist Kreken and drummer Lofthus interlock with complex grooves, while the guitars of Sagen plus the electronics and keyboards of Moen inundate what’s left of your senses. But Munkeby is something else entirely. When he doesn’t roar his voice, he blasts his horns or riffs his guitar. Between songs, he never floods the space with cheery banter, but still converses effortlessly with the crowd. A great frontman for a great band.

The concert took place at the Rockefeller Music Hall in Oslo, Norway at the end of the band’s latest European tour. An immersive journey through the band’s recent foray into electronic jazz metal darkness, it begins with two gems from Blackjazz—the furious “Fisheye” and disorienting drive of “The Madness and the Damage Done”. The set then spirals onwards and upwards with incendiary versions of “In The Kingdom of Kitsch You Will Be A Monster” and “Goretex Weather Report”, along with chaotic noise improvisation. A passionate run through King Crimson’s ”21st Century Schizoid Man” concludes—a fitting nod to their forebears with a not-so-subtle Shining slant.

Luckily, the band has included a DVD of the entire fascinating spectacle. Strobing lights and blitz flashes set up the perfect foundation for a tremendous visual counterpart, and the audience is fully into it. Shining‘s Live Blackjazz showcases expert live fusion of the two genres Norwegians are best at—free jazz & black metal—and is a brilliant look at what music can do in this next decade. ~Mats Johnasen 

 

 

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Shining - 2010 Blackjazz

Band : Shining

Album : Blackjazz
Release Year : 2010

Genre : Progressive | Black Metal | Jazz | Experimental

Tracklist :

01 The Madness And The Damage Done Pt 1
02 Fisheye
03 Exit Sun Pt 1
04 Exit Sun Pt 2
05 HEALTER SKELTER
06 The Madness And The Damage Done Pt 2
07 Blackjazz Deathtrance
08 Omen
09 21st Century Schizoid Man

A Norwegian band that started out as an experimental jazz group in 1998, and has since evolved into playing their own avant-garde brand of progressive metal. Winner of the Alarm Award in both 2006 (for In the Kingdom of Kitsch You Will Be a Monster) and 2007 (for Grindstone). Shining’s fifth album Blackjazz was released 18 January 2010 on Indie Recordings. The album’s title is meant to describe Shining’s sound, which on Blackjazz became even harder and more intense than ever before. New Shining sounds like Experimental Metal with huge Jazz influence.

Compared to Shining’s past albums, “Blackjazz” seems to be a much more violent, aggressive, modern and “avant-garde” affair, closer to the work of like-minded bands The Dillinger Escape Plan, Fantômas, Ground Zero and Ruins. These songs are performed with a sense of urgency that almost borderlines on lunacy but, after the first couple of listens, it becomes quite clear that this is one of the most chaotically controlled albums of recent times.

Whereas Shining have experimented with electronic elements from the very beginning of their career, they have always been a lot more subdued compared to the dense, layered industrial sound design they went for this time. Synthesizer leads and flourishes abound across the album, which leads me to a major complaint : had they focused on simpler, catchier leads instead of the intricate finger work scattered all over the songs, “Blackjazz” could have been an even stronger set of compositions with an stronger focus on the absolutely stellar rhythmic section of the band. Drummer Torstein Lofthus’ work on this album is nothing short of stunning and easily ranks among the best drum performances I’ve heard in a long, long time.

The guitar work is, without a doubt, the most chaotic performance on “Blackjazz”. Angular riffs and chords, with little to non-existent focus in melody, make up the bulk of the album. The fact that there are no guitar solos might enrage some of the more conservative fans but, yet again, this is not an album for narrow-minded prog rock listeners. There is some heavy feedback experimentation as well as noisy drone elements that might bring to mind the work of Khanate and Gnaw (“Omen”). These sections mix surprisingly well with Shining’s own brand of savage mindfuckery.

Singer and band leader Jørgen Munkeby lashes out a bizarre yet intense vocal performance that draws much inspiration from Mike Patton and Yamatsuka Eye, aided by a diverse array of effects and post-production vocal manipulation. Apart from singing and playing guitar, Munkeby (a former member of Jaga Jazzist) took care of the saxophone parts, specially prominent in “Blackjazz Deathtrance”, drone-meets-Naked City sounding “Omen” and the album closer, a fucked up rendition of King Crimson’s classic “21st Century Schizoid Man”. “Blackjazz” needs to be thoroughly heard over and over in order to be believed and fully understood. A soon-to-be classic album.

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