If Ornette Coleman and Autobahn had a musical lovechild delivered by Dr. Scott Herren, it might sound something like the Danish jazz-fusion trio Badun. The group’s debut album embodies the eclectic and improvisational spirit of latter-day Miles Davis and articulates it through the mouthpiece of present-day digital technologies. The result is often abstruse, sometimes bizarre, but always compelling through and through.
The fog of Bitches Brew hovers thickly above tracks like “Mælkebøtten” and “Pulsen,” which provide a soft bed of keys upon which flurries of ticks and clicks bounce. Tracks lacking any rhythmic backbone, though, often devolve into post-produced chaos. “Kompleks” and “Søvnløs,” for example, rely on dissonantly layered percussion and kitchen-sink sampling that sound not unlike a swarm of insects briefly landing on the rim of your ear before buzzing off again. But the technique yields more hits than misses, as on “Nr. 44,” in which lush pianos cascade across staggered thrusts of rhythm. Badun suggests great potential for those equally adept at keying their MacBook and Fender Rhodes.
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