FUSK
Danish drummer and FUSK bandleader Kasper Tom Christiansen has a wonderfully unique stylistic slant on his instrument. He’s no purist; instead, he tastefully mixes genres, as much at home with the techniques required in contemporary new music as with the improvisational surprises of free jazz.

This acoustic band has fun with the album’s feel of freewheeling swing. There’s often a tongue-in-cheek attitude to the music’s mercurial, gripping shifts and turns. It’s fresh music that plays around with the sounds we are used to hearing, as the musicians tip their hats to the Avant-garde of the 60’s, while at the same time blasting through those self-same styles. Kasper Tom and Andreas Lang define the way today’s rhythm section should sound, while bass clarinetist/clarinetist Rudi Mahall and trumpeter Tomasz Dabrowski celebrate their musical conversation as spiritual brothers.

“FUSK makes you happy” was one critic’s conclusion. For another critic, the band “sets free a weightless depth and joy, followed by a passion to play; our lives should be accompanied more often by such multi-layered soundtracks as these.” Absolutely! Weighty and feather-light at the same time, the music is made to sound effortless, as the difficult is transformed into artful exhilaration, with the players dancing around the rules of the game. The poet Karl Mickel got it right: “If it’s not fun, it’s no fun.”