INSOMNIA BRASS BAND
Late Night Kitchen
Anke Lucks – trombone
Almut Schlichting – baritone saxophone
Christian Marien – drums
01 – Beach Bar Before Breakfast / Wiegenlied (5:29)
02 – Ssst (3:32)
03 – Fitting Clothes (6:50)
04 – Gingerbread Resistance Song (6:05)
05 – Nein – Doch (4:06)
06 – Rimdir (4:34)
07 – African Birdsong (4:00)
08 – In My Name (2:26)
09 – Alles OK? (4:55)
total time: 42:38
compositions by:
Almut Schlichting: 01 (Beach Bar), 04, 07
and
Anke Lucks: 01 (Wiegenlied), 02, 03, 05, 06, 08, 09
recorded January 2020 by Guy Sternberg at Lowswing Recording Studio, Berlin
mixed and mastered by Guy Sternberg
photography by Anke Lucks
design by Kurz Gestaltung, Berlin
produced by Insomnia Brass Band
© and ℗ 2020 Tiger Moon Records, TMR 009
The recording of this music was supported by the Berlin Senate Cultural Affairs Department
LC – 37384
CD / Digipack
Release Date: November 27, 2020
INSOMNIA BRASS BAND
Anke Lucks – trombone
Almut Schlichting – baritone saxophone
Christian Marien – drums
Baritone saxophonist Almut Schlichting, trombonist Anke Lucks, and drummer Christian Marien are a miniature brass band, transcending its compact size to produce a raucous, ebullient sound one might expect from a much larger ensemble.
The trio formed in 2017 and since then it’s developed an irresistible, unstoppable contrapuntal attack of interlocking parts that sees the group pulling apart and coming back together with breathless energy.
Each musician juggles shifting rolls, toggling between rhythm and melody as they traverse a beguiling landscape of free jazz, funk, punk rock, and New Orleans brass band traditions.
On each tune the group is constant motion, playing quicksilver harmonies, injecting spontaneous accents, colliding melodic conceits, and generally raising the roof.
While the musicians draw upon a wide vocabulary of techniques and traditions, Insomnia Brass Band never allows its heady ideas to get in the way of a good time.
Peter Margasak
The Insomnia Brass Band was founded in spring 2017 during a working scholarship of the Berlin Senate and developed its sound around the playing material composed by Lucks and Schlichting. Since 2018 the band has been touring with numerous concerts in jazz clubs and at festivals. With another Senate scholarship, the trio has now recorded their first CD: Late Night Kitchen!
www.insomniabrassband.de
Jazzthetik – November 2020 – Hans-Jürgen Schaal on “Late Night Kitchen
Jazz sometimes bores me – that`s why the Insomnia Brass Band excites me all the more. (…) a fun line-up, nothing is harmonically padded, nothing is prettified. The two wind players and the one drummer romp in earthy grooves, there is polyphonic improvisation, boppishly torn themes are blown, it swings and stomps as if unleashed, the saxophone plays buzzing riffs, the trombone makes funny vocal sounds – who would have thought that such a reduced line-up can produce such a variety of forms and rhythms! Hands-on, unaffected, it’s a lot of fun, you want to dance pogo to it. More of this please!
Bad Alchemy – September 2020 – Rigobert Dittmann on “Late Night Kitchen”
If you suffer from sleeplessness, sometimes it helps to eat something. But what is served after midnight as spaghetti al nero die seppia is tape salad which could make you grit your teeth. However, only visually. Acoustically, Anke Lucks, Almut Schlichting and Christian Marien with trombone, baritone sax and drums offer something quite appetizing. (…) Trombone and baritone instigate with big cheeks to dancing, buxom babes push their sugar daddies around amidst driving staccato, resistance is futile, Marien baby-dodding, tapping hm-tata beats and letting them melt for smooth swing. No? It’s enough to make a cat laugh, every “No” is countered by a melodious “Yes!” on the horns that weighs heavier. In whose name? In the name of a loudly crowing, calypsomanic vitality in XXL. Everything OK? Everything’s fine, my seam just burst.
Salt Peanuts Blog – November 2020 – Eyal Hareuveni on “Late Night Kitchen”
The Insomnia Brass Band is a powerful trio, always in constant motion and always juggling with quicksilver harmonies, spontaneous accents, melodic conceits, and infectious grooves, delivered with unstoppable joy and with a sharp sense of humor that brings to mind the American quartet Sex Mob led by trumpeter Steven Bernstein.
Jazzpodium – November 2020 – Stephan Richter on “Late Night Kitchen”
(The musicians) actually manage to get the maximum out of a minimal line-up and remind one of the great New Orleans brass bands. It is amazing with how much variety and speed they switch from accompanying to soloist function, sometimes making you forget how intelligent and precisely crafted the music is.
JazzThing – November 2020 – Martin Laurentius on “Late Night Kitchen”
(…) a sprawling energetic interplay of thematic motifs and rhythmic patterns with silvery resounding intervals, crystalline themes and meandering solo choruses of the two brass and woodwind players.
FAZ – October 2020 – Concert review by Norbert Krampf
All three get down to business with verve and energy!
Concerto – November 2020 – Review “Late Night Kitchen”
The two wind players interlock in melodious cooperation, the drummer sets accents, on a par, or moves the playing forward in a jazzy way. This is jazz of the freer kind, something worth listening to.
Sonic – November 2020 – Ulrich Steinmetzger on “Late Night Kitchen”
The music of the Insomnia Brass Band is enigmatic, voluminous, raw and like a promise of something greater. It appeals to the legs and to the head, taking a few steps back as a miniature version in order to move forward. And above all, it leaves you wanting more.
Hifi&Records – January 2021 – Hans-Dieter Grünefeld on “Late Night Kitchen”
New Orleans polyphony (..) hardbop and free elements (..) Even a fierce two-beat dispute “Nein-Doch” is possible. Nevertheless, there is agreement on the nostalgic unison motif to the “Gingerbread Resistance Song” (…) optimal communication, dense interactions (…)
Jazzhalo Online Magazine – December 2020 – Ferdinand Dupuis-Panther on “Late Night Kitchen”
Come in to the “Beach Bar” for breakfast – that is the musical invitation at the beginning of the album, which is dominated by a strong dialogue between the two wind players. The baritone saxophonist purrs in the depths of her instrument, forming a recurring bass line for the trombonist to spread moving waves of sound. Before “Beach Bar Before Breakfast” segues seamlessly into “Lullaby” a brilliant percussion solo can be heard (…).
“African Birdsong” does without recorded bird calls and shines with a rhythm that is otherwise only known from street marching bands. Dull drum rolls – think of an African drumming workshop – accompany the purring saxophone voice, which doesn’t just linger in the low tones. And off it goes with tropical sound fever in the spirit of Fela Kuti. (…)