Echoes of Zoo

ECHOES OF ZOO, an avant-jazz/progrock eccentricity led by saxophonist Nathan Daems, prove that experimental music can be stupendously fun and forward-thinking. The name doesn’t just sound cool: Daems really did grow up near a zoo, and the many animal noises he heard in his youth left a lasting impression. So much so even to the point that the band’s latest album, Speech of Species, is directly informed by the miraculous ways the animal kingdom communicates.

The band’s music itself is deliciously offbeat and relentlessly adventurous, with flamboyant sax squawks mimicking a flock of exotic birds to Afrobeat-inspired polyrhythms that slither like a lizard. There’s plenty of influences audible that reveal how stacked the record collection of each band member must be. Echoes of Zoo cherrypick sounds from literally every corner of the globe, from the Balkan all the way to Brazil, molding them  into eclectic, surrealistic space jams.

– Jasper Willems