Had the JB's been time-warped to the late 1990's and exposed to all the modern goings-on in music-the post-rock jazzbo, the electronica, drone-while retaining their deep-groove funk, they might sound something like one-man band Euphone, the cover for multi-instrumentalist Ryan Rapsys. With a li ttle guitar help from Bill Dolan, Rapsys constructs an EP's worth of short, funky, and swinging instrumentals on Breaking Parole that ebb, flow, and often cook. Each song is primarily built on a bed of drums and bass with guitar, keyboards, and electronic squeals sqirting over the top, but the scope of styles that the songs touch upon is truly impressive: The Sun Theme catches a sweaty bass groove and runs with it, making it noodly funkadelica and tribal mayhem; Passport revels in the same hypnotic, mechanical, lock-step drone of early Can; A Hundred Times and More somehow entangles loungey guitar, elctro-ambience, and Shaft-styled cymbal work into a coherent song; the rock riffing of Nasal Evidence dovetails into an atmospheric soundscape led by a cavernous bass melody; Little Warbles is simply messy funk (free funk?) that manages to sound greasy and unhinged, but also futuristic; and the opening bit of New Dusk Policy could be influenced by world-beat. In the end, the songs are perhaps too short to fully flesh out the tonal intricacies and details that are implicit in sections of each of the seven pieces. They seem to want to be extended and more fully formed, and the EP ends long before you want it to. Even with such a shortcoming, Breaking Parole is a wonderful respite, a prodigious example of inspired musicianship. ~ Stanton Swihart, Rovi

1		The Sun Theme
2		Passport
3		A Hundred Times and More
4		I Did Not Say May Be Not
5		Nasal Evidence
6		Little Warbles
7		New Dusk Policy

	Like us on Facebook
	@SoundHound	Follow