SLANG

Slang's music is above all multidirectional. The name 'slang' evokes a living language with varied sources and accents. Rock energy, Coltranian outbursts, Indian sonorities, African and South American rhythms, dub and jungle colours, or the hip-hop and soul hybrids on their latest recording. This will for stylistic diversity was part of the group's original impulse: a desire for a music free of all frontiers and labels.Bassist-vocalist François Garny performs on electric, acoustic & upright basses; Manuel Hermias alto & soprano saxes rule the roost, but he picks up a flute for the closer. Seba, who placed an African djembe in the middle of a conventional drum kit and, in fact, allotted a large piece of his action to it, had the most obvious ethnic input in his work.The music and the rhythms came from several sources round the world, and were creative and passionate, vigorous without being noisy. One could clearly discern African and Latin American influences as well as a Spanish number.Over the years, Belgium has been quietly turning out jazz (and other) musicians of great talent, often distinguished by a somewhat libertarian spirit and attracted by modernity. The trio Slang lives up to this offbeat lineage. Here is a globe-trotting form of music, aptly dubbed 'ethnico-Coltranian' a kind of abundance sparking off in all directions, mystical and obsessive, where all sorts of cultural roots intertwine. Somewhere between Africa and the Orient, Soft Machine and Pharoah Sanders.