Decoy

All in their twenties, these four young men are currently at the top tip of the Swiss jazz scene. District Five has taken time off after their debut album, the antithesis of short-term project culture. Now, with Decoy, they do justice to the album's title, throwing us a seductive bait. The aim behind the album is to transcend conventional jazz and offer a statement; it was to sound different from the experience of District Five live, using the possibilities of studio recording to mine the wealth of electronic-based sounds the quartet hears around them. Whether flowing calmly along or sweeping weightlessly through the expanses of ambient soundscapes, whether the concentrated energy of free improvisation shatters the song structure or eruptive clusters of sound and hard-edged grooves emphasise the physical aspects of the music, in the club-friendly anthem 'Maths', the multi-layered sound art of District Five is compellingly direct and builds up a hypnotic momentum.