Al Doum & The Faryds
Spirit Rejoin

An all-Italian reality, as interesting as it is probably under-promoted, as it deserves given the "universality" of the proposal compared to the usual ones from our country, which in the end become that usual backyard dispute stuff where it’s no longer clear what we’re really talking about. As such, this probably couldn't help but have its roots in the underground of a city like Milan which (without delving into any form of civic disputes, otherwise we take a step back) is certainly the most international among all. The references to the myth of Aktuala, the group founded by Walter Maioli in the early seventies and remembered as a cult moment in Italian music of those years, abound but are also somehow fitting: Al Doum & The Faryds effectively pick up the baton and revive the same acid-jazz attitude mixed with influences from African and Asian sounds but updated to today, drawing, for example, some compositional forms in the style of Goat ("Weed And Love") or giving the sound even drone-like inflections as in the case of "Unity Is Brotherhood".

Al Doum & The Faryds is an avant-jazz ensemble composed of eight members and formed by Davide Domenichini in 2011. Davide is also the "boss" of Black Sweat Records, the label that has published all of the group's LPs, including this latest one titled "Spirit Rejoin", released in collaboration with the Swiss label Bongo Joe (the same that has recently published the Altin Gun project by Jesper Verhulst and produced by Jacco Gardner). Certainly much appreciated by critics, somehow the project has not achieved the same popularity that has instead been bestowed, for example (without straying too far from the genre), on more conventional groups like Calibro 35 or In Zaire. And yet here the quality and variety of sounds are nothing short of surprising: from the wilder episodes such as the aforementioned "Weed And Love" or the electrified acid-jazz of "Satieva" to more conventional moments like the nocturnal "Jimmy's Gun", reminiscences from "Riusciranno i nostri eroi..." (soundtrack by Armando Trovajoli) emerge as in "Light Up", and there are astonishing sessions of a meditative and contemplative nature such as "Solchi", "Unity Is Brotherhood", "Drums Odyssey", "Spirit Rejoin" where various comparisons from the jazz of Miles Davis to Sun Ra's and Pharoah Sanders's can be made, afro-beat, ethio-jazz abound, and where there remains an underground tribal component that seems almost seething like a kind of primordial broth in the background of hallucinatory urban jungle suggestions.

Certainly one of the most interesting records released in our country during this year 2018, "Spirit Rejoin" can serve a dual function and be an object of pure enjoyment when it comes to listening, besides bringing relief to your souls; but it is also a window into a world that in the end might not be so distant after all, but simply right behind your house.