A Coral Room
I.o.t
Somethings out there. a buzzing, a chirping, a few sonorous electric sounds, dark and glowering echo chambers suddenly penetrated by hard nasal saxophone riffs, set off by a relaxed, yet relentless beat, surrounded by cloud-like keyboard surfaces. That's what I.o.T (short for "Internet of Things") sounds like. It's the theme track on the debut album released by A Coral Room. Matthias Vogt (Keys & FX), Oliver Leicht (Electric Reeds), and Oli Rubow (Dub Drums) arent just known within avant-garde circles, theyve reached wider audiences in various constellations. Theyve played leading roles as musicians with groups such as "Die Fantastischen Vier" and "DePhazz" (Rubow), contributed to "[re:jazz]" and productions in the electronic field (Motorcitysoul) and as DJ (Vogt), and played as a member of the "hr-Bigband ensemble" (Leicht) - and now all three are part of the newly formed collaborative project, A CORAL ROOM. The Frankfurt-based trio combines the musical spontaneity of jazz with electronic aesthetics and the 'loop thinking' found in most modern club music. The group succeeds in creating deliberate confusion, where the drums lead the melody and the sax adds percussive elements or the bass line. According to Oli Rubow, ACR is a trio with an "incredibly unusual lineup", that is: keyboards, saxophone, clarinet and electronic drums. Classic jazz lives and breathes primarily through live interaction on stage and when a specific (solo) instrument comes to the fore. "The audience immediately knows who to turn to" says Matthias Vogt. "ACR often creates elements that aren't so clearly identifiable and that's what creates truly surprising moments - even for us. You can't always tell who's interjecting, when we are all hunched over our laptops." Musical references to Techno and House are certainly no coincidence. They are intentional. After all, the formally qualified jazz musician has also been on the scene for years as a highly requested House DJ.