Fogh Depot - Fogh Depot (2015)

Recommended if you like Hidden Orchestra, Xploding Plastix, Bohren & Der Club Of Gore, Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble, Dale Cooper Quartet. Fogh Depot is not just a collaboration between three musicians weaving a cozy melancholic cocoon in the midst of a looming, cold, unwelcoming metropolis of Moscow. It's a creativity lab where complex cryptoanarchic ideas rigidify in the viscously flowing Phrygian mode, while the simple and naive piano melodies sweep the listener right back to childhood. Fogh Depot's debut album contains eight stories told by different people in different places. ""Anticyclone"" feels like a massive hedge-maze amidst towering sand dunes of apathetic lust. ""Mining"" - is a slow descent into a narrow, murky mine, now and then suddenly illuminated by the guide's flaring torch. Does he even know where he's leading his patrons? Sorrowful and strange, ""Nevalyashka"" is a nostalgic waltz, bringing to mind an old wooden attic where forgotten toys are gathering dust, while the clear and springy bass in ""Sagittarius"" can only be the belligerent footsteps of a mythical centaur. The simplest way to define Fogh Depot's music would be to call it seductive brooding jazz with an electronic twist. Fogh Depot conjoin the unconjoinable, combining distorted low resolution samples with pure, atmospheric piano chords, multilayered drones with bebop changes, four-to-the-floor beat with polyrhythm, simple, easy-to-remember tunes with sophisticated effects for woodwinds, springy bass grooves with timeless ambient soundscapes. Live performance targeted at acoustic perception binds this technological hodgepodge together, giving every listener a chance to find the right texture for a rainy evening and a glass of good scotch.