BLACK FLOWER

As an undeniable part of the Pitchfork generation: highly skilled musicians with a large degree of openness – Black Flower strives for original music and delivers a vibrant, hypnotic and variously entertaining musical mix of Ethio jazz, afrobeat, oriental and dub, bending all purist rules to good effect and claiming to the age-old human ritual of dancing! Hypnotic Ethio dub jazz that sounds as if John Zorn put on Fela Kuti’s shoes and imbibed Mulatu Astatke’s whirls.

Recommended by Gilles Peterson, The Gaslamp Killer, LeFto, ... and remarks on Eurosonic and Womex, Black Flower is gaining more and more international notoriety

Piloted by saxophonist /flutist /composer Nathan Daems (Ragini Trio, Dijf Sanders, Antwerp Gipsy-Ska Orkestra), this instrumental band aims for originality. Fellow musicians and 'brothers down the road' are Jon Birdsong (dEUS, Beck, Calexico) on cornet, Simon Segers (Absynthe Minded, De Beren Gieren, Stadt) at the drums, Filip Vandebril (Lady Linn, The Valerie Solanas, Antwerp Gipsy-Ska Orkestra) at the bass and Wouter Haest (Los Callejeros, Voodoo Boogie) playing keys.

For many of us, the Ethiopian aspect once made known to the world by Mulatu Astatke will stand out. Still, Black Flower further adds oriental scales, Afrobeat à la Fela Kuti, jazz in a John Zorn way and varied western music traditions such as rock and dub. The resulting melting pot is undoubtedly inspired by Nathan's distant travels and the multifariously colorful city of Brussels.

«…Brilliant… » Gilles Peterson BBC
«…Highly succesful combination of psychedelic jazz, Afro-funk and Ethio-Jazz in this excellent album » Songlines Magazine

LINE-UP
Nathan Daems : composition, sax, Washint, Ney, Kaval, flûte
Jon Birdsong : Cornet, Cornetto, Sea Shells
Simon Segers : Drum
Filip Vandebril : Bass
Wouter Haest : Keyboard, Organ, Clavinet

Available all year