Karaba is the new band on Kryptox. The Berlin label founded to show what’s happening in the German Jazz crossover scene. One of these bands is Karaba from Munich. The band was already featured on the Kryptox Kraut Jazz Futurism Compilation in 2019.
Now they deliver their first album for Kryptox. Five young guys from Munich. Skilled and tight on their instruments and deeply rooted in the heritage of all kind of wild forms of jazz, krautrock and psychedelic music.
The kids began to jam together when starting to study music in 2012. Being from Munich, a town where legendary Kraut Rock bands like Amon Düül, Guru Guru and Embryo came from, the Karaba guys are obviously influenced by these german kraut and psychedelic sounds. You can hear that in many shades of this album: the complexity of the unusual rhythmical fundaments and percussive patterns. The Prog-Rock parts, with these partly abstract unisono lines and strange melodic figures or unexpected chord changes.
Karaba’s album starts with a slightly arabic feel. The repetitive groove of “Der Inder” gets the listener immediately into a different south-eastern space. Later the music gets more animated, more structured and more uplifting. A whole universe of little influences. Shades of certain Jazz and prog-rock bands: you might think about the canterbury scene of the 1960ies and 70ies. There are textures reminding of Soft Machine, Frank Zappa, Mats and Morgan, Kraan and maybe some Passport influences. (Another band from Munich that left a huge footmark in the worldwide jazz fusion history).
The whole Karaba sound has a certain 1970es feel. But not in a pure retro way. The LP sounds more like a modern psychedelic 2020 Lofi Indie Jazz thing – a sound that fits well in these wild times and finds its place in the actual scenario of new jazz bands worldwide.