4 little gems (168)

Kick Up, released a few years after Spacebox, is the second of Trepte's two "spacebox" albums, and includes many of the same crew, with the percussionist the only difference. The record is far less noisy than the debut, leaving behind the harsh distortions to let the individual instruments come out more clearly. Kick Up is far more groove-laden and more instrumental, perhaps getting closer to Trepte's concept of "an authentic, cyclic structured, modal collective [of] improvised, electric live music." Not quite jazz, not quite psychedelic rock or funk, the album manages to balance all these as it offers interplay of flute, guitar, and sax, with loose circular rhythms and also some weird electronic noises here and there. The title track, "Kick Up," builds with intensity until it threatens to careen out of control, while "Introfunction" offers some violin-driven space rock skronk, and the band is still loose and fluid even on the heavier acid rock of "Earmike Song." Through it all, Kick Up manages to offer a great halfway point between the noisy energy of the Spacebox album and the smooth sound of Trepte's later projects like Real Time Music and the Move Groove records.