MAARTSE BUIEN

PALINCKX was the creation as well as last name of the brothers Jacques and Bert. Although they venture into extremely complex and bizarrely constructed avant-prog and experimental soundscapes beginning with their albums in the 90s, the group actually began strictly as an experimental and avant-garde jazz outfit in their native Thilburg in the Netherlands. On their debut MAARTSE BUIEN (March moods) the band would be called PALINCKX & PALINCKX (after the two brothers) but was actually a quintet with Bert Palinckx on bass, Frank Van Oosterhout on drums, Paul Van Kemenade on alto sax and bass clarinet, Jacques Palinckx on electric guitarist and Hans Sparla on trombone. It wouldn't be until keyboardist Cor Fuhler's admission to the band in 1994 that they would explore more bizarre and textured soundscapes.

On MAARTSE BUIEN, there are few rock characteristics at this point but somehow still comes off as a sort of mishmash of jazz styles ranging from hard bop, cool jazz and avant-garde freeform styles. However there are touches of avant-prog lingering about. While the guitar is present there are hardly any signs that it has a life of its own save the short unexpected outbursts as on "Jazz & Epilog" which is really the only track to sputter out some psychedelic freaked out guitar parts. While the compositions are somewhat focused into thematic movements, in reality this sounds more like a free for all of jazz ideas that are being thrown at the wall to see what will stick. The band clearly hadn't found any sort of uniqueness to their sound at this point and nothing on the album really jumps out and grabs my attention.

At this point, PALINCKX are clearly just getting their feet wet as they attempt to recreate avant-garde jazz from the late 60s and succeed in creating a nice retro type of jazz album sound, however the album seems to meander aimlessly around hoping to latch onto something more tangible to sink its teeth into and the inexperience of the team just can't seem to find any particular aspect to call their own. MAARTSE BUIEN is certainly a nice listen with great instrumental interplay and competent jazz performances which sometimes sound like big band on valium and other times more in the hard bop mode but basically this album sounds a bit lazy and a mere warmup session to the days when they tackle more complex arrangements that echo hints of Zappa and Henry Cow eclecticism.