L'Oucomballa

L'Oucomballa is the second album by the five-piece Companyia Electrica Dharma, a Catalan jazz fusion group that incorporates ethnic music from their region into their sound. The record follows closely the blueprint laid down by their debut, Diumenge, as the group creates instrumental music that is both relaxed and breezy, with lots of tweaked-out solos on guitar, keyboard, and sax, as well as some Spanish guitar. Though many of the tracks are not quite as loose and flowing as the stuff on the earlier disc, at other times L'Oucomballa gets even more intense, especially on the crazed jazz-funk of "Ball Llunatic-Toc," and there are several longer tracks, the title cut, "Ones Nones," and "Mater Maritima" for the group to really stretch out on their jamming. On the more ambient sections one often hears environmental sounds in the background, like ocean waves or birds twittering. Like its predecessor, L'Oucomballa offers flowing relaxed jazz fusion that is exotic, colorful, and wild.