Soul Trio Bouncin` In Bubbleverse Matti Klein

• 1 Odd Times To Party 04:26
• 2 Times (Echo) 02:51
• 3 New Frontiers 04:08
• 4 Frontiers (Echo) 02:46
• 5 A Summer Fairytale 05:54
• 6 Fairytale (Echo) 02:30
• 7 Capetown After Dark 04:12
• 8 Capetown (Echo) 03:25
• 9 End Of Sight 04:15
• 10 Sight (Echo) 01:39
• 11 Left Lane Larry 04:41
• 12 Larry's Blues (Echo) 02:22
• Total Runtime 43:09

Info for Soul Trio Bouncin` In Bubbleverse

We all live in our own bubble, they say. Due to the power of social media and algorithms, we are trapped in a world where we only want to hear the same things. But is that really true? On their third album Soul Trio Bouncin’ In Bubbleverse Matti Klein and his Soul Trio demonstrate: It can be incredible fun to juggle with a wide variety of bubbles from the spheres of jazz, funk, hip-hop or space rock, to explore their boundaries and passionately pop them with pizzazz in order to discover new perspectives.

They have always been an unorthodox three of a kind. The trio has a unique sound that is rooted in the warm tone of Klein’s Wurlitzer Electric Piano, the deep foundation of a rare 1973 Rhodes Bass and the effect altered, expressive playing of saxophonist and bass clarinettist Lars Dieterich. Joined by the rhythmically highly flexible drums of André Seidel, the result is ‘a new, smokin’ hot twist on the much-loved organ trio format’, as the British magazine Jazzwise once put it.

‘As a musician, you’re constantly travelling in all kinds of bubbles,’ bandleader Klein explains the album title, ’sometimes you’re at a big festival, then again in a small jazz club. And we’re constantly bouncing around and immersing ourselves in a new universe again and again.’ The man knows what he’s talking about. After all, the vintage keyboard master, who was born in Berlin in 1984, could be called Germany’s hardest travelling man in the name of groove.

As part of the successful jazz-funk formation Mo‘ Blow and as musical director of Brazilian soul-pop legend Ed Motta, Klein has performed on the stages of the most important jazz clubs in New York, Tokyo, London and Paris. And his Soul Trio, founded in 2017 together with Dieterich and Mo‘ Blow fellow Seidel, can now look back on over 300 concerts all over the world – with performances and tours in South Africa, Malaysia, Bahrain, Finland and the UK, among others.

Bouncin‘ In Bubbleverse reflects these many years of tight-knit experiences in a special way. All of the pieces written by the bandleader have a kind of encore that picks up elements of the former song but interprets them much more freely and sometimes in a completely different way. Klein refers to these reflections as ‘Echos’, which lends a further nuance of meaning to the album’s filter bubble theme: A change of view and letting go will open your eyes to a new perspective.

‘That was created at our concerts,’ says Klein, ’the song is actually over, but someone just carries on and pulls the others into a jam. I like this spontaneity. You shatter your routine and take another look at it. I wanted that for the album too.’ In other words: on Bouncin‘ In Bubbleverse, the echoes, developed together in the spirit of a collective solo, either continue the stories of the reference piece or elevate them to other dimensions.

For example, the tender dreamy summer romance ballad ‘A Summer Fairytale’ is given a fiery Latin happy ending. ‘New Frontiers’, which mediates between hip-hop aesthetics, yacht-pop sunshine and metrically upside-down retro soul jazz, is transformed into a psychedelic polyrhythmic anthem. A rocking, propulsive ‘Left Lane Larry’, inspired by left-hand traffic on the British Isles, returns as a soulful blues. ‘Capetown After Dark’, on the other hand, which also reminisces about the trio’s poignant tour experiences with its bittersweet energy, takes on a deeper, spiritual note in its echo reverberation.

In any case, the first album created in Klein’s own studio in Prenzlauer Berg shows how much the trio has grown together and matured in recent years. Songs such as the almost chanson-like ‘End of Sight’, composed on the Azorean Island of Graciosa, are characterised by an immense inner calm and the knowledge that one can rely on the other.

The trio has also perfected a further unmistakable trademark – the use of wild, odd time signatures. None of the compositions on Soul Trio Bouncin‘ In Bubbleverse are in conventional 4/4 time. But nobody seems to take it the wrong way. Quite the contrary – you’ll even dance to it. These are ‘Odd times to party’ after all, just like the albums beautifully ambiguous opening track. ‘That’s what the album is about,’ explains Matti Klein, ’we may be living in challenging and strange times – but we’re making the most of it!’

Matti Klein, Wurlitzer, Fender Rhodes bass
Lars Dieterich, bass clarinet, saxophone
André Seidel, drums

Matti Klein
Since the early 1970s Fender Rhodes and Wurlitzer electric piano sounds had the most profound and sustainable impact on the music heritage of funk and soul jazz. Herbie Hancock, Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder or Donny Hathaway, none of these music legends could resist the seducing sound of these instruments.

For several years now Berlin-born pianist, composer, university lecturer and curator Matti Klein has played „Wurli“ and „Rhodes“, as he affectionately calls them, as an integral part of his music. It all began with the highly successful funk jazz quartet Mo’ Blow. The Rhodes sound was an indispensable component in the band’s successful ten year legacy. Mo‘ Blow released three albums on the renowned ACT label, won the Audience Award and the Jury Prize at the Jazz & Blues Award Berlin in 2008, and the coveted Future Sound Award at the Leverkusener Jazztage in 2011.

Educated by Hubert Nuss, Wolfgang Köhler and Rolf Zielke at the Berlin University of the Arts, Matti Klein toured with Mo‘ Blow after completing his studies, played and arranged music for pop stars such as Herbert Grönemeyer, Sarah Connor and Jimmy Somerville. He has also worked as a soloist, sideman or musical director with many jazz greats such as Nils Landgren, David T. Walker, Ed Motta, Allan Harris and Torsten Goods.

Over the years he performed more than 1000 national and international concerts, traveling to legendary jazz venues such as the Blue Note in Tokyo, Ronnie Scott’s in London, the Highline Ballroom in New York or the New Morning in Paris, as well as major festivals such as Jazz in Marciac (France), Pori Jazz Festival (Finland), the Leverkusener Jazztage (Germany), the Elbjazz Festival (Germany) and the Jazz Baltica (Germany).

Alongside the bass clarinet and tenor saxophone of Lars Zander and the tight grooves of ex-Mo‘ Blow drummer André Seidel, Matti Klein’s Wurlitzer and especially his Rhodes bass sound have constituted the essential foundation of his new Soul Trio’s sound concept since 2017.

The debut album „Soul Trio“, released in January 2020, and the band’s concerts have received the highest accolades from both critics and audiences alike. German music journal Jazzthetik praises the „epic beauty“ of the trio’s music, „which is unparalleled,“ and radio broadcaster Deutschlandfunk Kultur even jubilated: „It grooves tremendously (…) just like it did in the finest days of soul under the Tamla/Motown roof.“

Though rich in connotations, this music does not simply rest in one period. Traditional roots flow naturally. The Soul Trio sound, however, always remains progressive and highly receptive to the present. Over the past four years, Matti Klein, Lars Zander and André Seidel have succeeded in cultivating a fine-tuned and homogenous partnership that grants all musicians enough artistic freedom to shed the traditional idiomatic restraints of traditional soul jazz in order to evolve this genre.

After the highly acclaimed debut, a follow-up album, „Soul Trio Live On Tape“, will be released at the end of April 2021. The recording grants intriguing insights into the trio’s evolution and sound philosophy. Recordings are assembled from the band’s first studio live session, which was recorded directly to tape in February 2018 at Lovelite Studio in Berlin. The musical footage consists of songs that the keyboardist had originally written for Mo‘ Blow and that now shine in new arrangements. All musicians played without headphones in the same room, creating a fascinating sound document, which depicts the „real deal“ without any post-processing, overdubs or corrections. A live concert atmosphere – unaltered and pure! (Thorsten Hingst)

This album contains no booklet.