WHEN you think of a great line-up combination, a trio that can really pull it off is a truly great thing: think The Jimi Hendrix Experience, think The Jam, even Kitchens of Distinction. No doubt you’ll have your faves too.
A great trio operating out of Cincinnatti right now are post-/outrock threesome FLOCKS, who are wiping down the bar and calling time on 2020 with one final, excellent single, the seven-minute frontier exploration of “Grammar King”; open your ears and let the complexity flood in, below.
Whatever grind and depredations 2020 has brought, FLOCKS are flying high.
Spreading out from a core motif of tronica – a shearing chatter of sound, it builds with the kind of free jazz at hyperspeed which strays deep into Squarepusher’s thrillingly scrambled realm.
There’s meaty funk bass, percussion exploding fractally, electronica stumbling through wooziness and then wholly through the looking glass, taking in a Weather Report-style fusionscape on its way ever further out. Tortoise meet Jaga Jazzist meet To Rococo Rot cruising in the outer atmosphere.
The band say: “‘Grammar King’ is the last of a string of singles that functions stylistically as a bridge between our debut album and the two albums that we intend to release in 2021.
“It is a particularly meaningful release for us, as it was finished in spite of this pandemic we have all been coping with.
“In this time we’ve had fewer opportunities to express ourselves artistically, so each opportunity has become all that much more meaningful.”
Like your music a little a lot complex, exploratory, biting? Ladies and gents: FLOCKS can be your guide.
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