Vitamin F

Featuring both a Rhodes piano and a Wurlitzer, not to mention sax, trumpet, and clarinet (and clavinet, and vibraphone), the music of Portland's Fontanelle feels like a step back in time—specifically to the early '70s. That's when Miles Davis blew minds with Bitches Brew and (along with Zappa) opened the door to the melding of jazz and rock in various forms. Fontanelle has dabbled in experimental and jazz-inflected sounds since its early-'00s inception. On Vitamin F—its first outing in 10 years—Fontanelle looks for the funk heart beating within those retro wrappings. The trumpet-flavored "Watermelon Hands" slithers along, its funk backbone fused with a restrained Miles Davis vibe until it bursts into an Ornette Coleman–steeped denouement. The nearly 10-minute "The Adjacent Possible" blurts, belches, and ultimately grooves on a variety of textures and languid tones, with playful shape-shifting rhythms. "Traumaturge" lets the leather-clad guitar heroes in on the party, softening the attack with the burbling Rhodes tagging along and a bass clarinet carving a groove.