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Album Review

King Champion Sounds
Different Drummer Wormer Bros Records

Article written by Ged M - Nov 13, 2013

We reviewed Ajar Saggar’s last band, the Bent Moustache, in 2011 and two years later here’s his new one, which includes GW Sok (formerly of Dutch punks The Ex) on vocals, plus a brass section. Like before, this Dutch band is eclectic; the brilliant ‘Here We Go Again’ is energy-soaked post-punk with bright blasts of brass until it ends by dissolving into freeform jazz shronk, like an alliance between The Fall, Essential Logic and Sun Ra, while ‘Orbit Macht Frei’ is a jazz-punk polemic (“television: the ridiculous religion”) as if Gil Scott Heron belonged with New York's No Wave.

It’s not all post-punk though; the atmospheric ‘El Problemo Grande’, with its quietly plucked flamenco guitar and wailing saxophone, sounds like a fusion of southern Spain and Balkan jazz while ‘Shouting At The Moon’ starts dubby and then ploughs a long guitar/keyboard groove while declaiming slightly hippy lyrics: “we’ve forgotten about the sky, we’ve built ceilings instead”. Only the bonus track ‘Massivemissivemessage from the Weird Mouth’ is a let-down, 10 minutes of synth-throbbing electronica that samples Lord Ha Ha then goes into a long and slightly dull sermon/rant from Mike Nolan (I don’t think it’s the Bucks Fizz guy…).

There’s a range of influences and a bagful of ideas, all in this one record. That makes it a slightly breathless and disorienting trip and it might work better consumed as individual songs; certainly ‘Here We Go Again’ is one of the finest five minutes I’ve heard all year.

Links:
https://kingchampionsounds.bandcamp.com/
http://kingchampionsounds.wordpress.com/