I suddenly seem to recall a song called “Message in the Middle of the Bottom”. Strange that. Listening to one album – in this case, Paar Linien’s self-titled album – and all sorts of other songs just start jumping into your train of thought.
“Paar Linien” is full of saxophone led jazz improvisations and extemporisations. Indeed, there are so many of them that a plane ticket to the land of avant-garde must have been purchased prior to recording and, whilst often discordant and even sometimes difficult, the result is curiously appealing to the ears with the unexpected, yet pleasing, side effect of causing you to drift once more into the dark recesses of your own record collection.
“Paar Linien” isn’t, however, derivative even if some of the stylistic right turns are on everybody’s road map to freeform musical expression and, despite occasional lapses into arthouse soundtrack cues, a clear sense of direction remains evident across these nine tracks.
Any album that makes you want to dig deeper into music in general has my approval and “Paar Linien”, in its own black polo neck way, does just that.