Still Screaming, the fourth and latest album by the Cologne-based ensemble, is a phenomenal narrative work that does not simply pass on acoustic information, but unfolds its own emotional story with each track. This leads through a total of eight chapters of a musical reading book that acts like the soundtrack for a movie that has not been filmed. The kinematics of the big band sound body unfold with virtuosity within the coordinates of time, space and speed.
The dynamic works as a kind of sequel: the SJOmade its CD debut in 2016 with Primal Scream, and now the primal scream isfollowed by the (self-) assurance that they still like to “scream” with relish.Still Screaming" is evidence of the orchestra's self-confident furtherdevelopment and is the clearly audible result of both individual and collectivematuration processes. The tone colors in the interplay of brass and woodwindunfold even more confidently, even more varied, and the organic architecture ofcomposition, arrangement and instrumental artistry condenses even moreimpressively as a landscape of formal diversity and complex harmonies.
“Still Screaming” pours out of a cornucopia ofsounds, harmonies and improvisations. Modern big band sound can sound soexciting, so creative, so pulsating in the full brass sound, so nuanced in theinteraction of the instruments, so captivating in the soloistic freedom.
The works were all composed and arranged by thethree founding members Jens Böckamp, Johannes Ludwig and Stefan Karl Schmid.After seven years of continuous joint work with the orchestra, they have nowcombined their accumulated experience and individual preferences in their worksto create an overall work of pictorial emotionality and collective energy.
Release: 2020/09/25
