Already renowned for their fluid approach, incorporating as they do hiphop, Krautrock and musique concrète – eschewing conventional song structure for live improvisation – the London group have thrown another random element into the mix: Barbora Patkova, an improvisatory vocalist with lyrics sung in her native Slovakian.
The results are not unlike Amy Winehouse were she to have free-associated wildly over David Axelrod’s baroque instrumentals or the manic peregrinations of Sun Ra’s Arkestra. Made Of The Sun is languorous and jazzy; Time is electronica with a patina of exotica. Amid the quiet cacophony of Human Zoo, the squalls of sax and pattering percussion, The Heliocentrics – bassist Jake Ferguson, drummer/ producer Malcolm Catto, guitarist Adrian Owusu, multi-instrumentalist Jack Yglesias and a supporting cast including Syd Arthur’s Raven Bush – manage to corral the components towards something resembling a vague 70s blaxploitation movie theme. Depending on how closely you listen, you will either hear bustling sound-bursts, quixotic rhythms and jazzy noodling, or desolate torch songs for the broken-hearted: Capital Of Alone is the future-soul sound of London.
