Altz

The collision of electronics and vintage samples that resulted in '80s/'90s acid jazz now sounds like a dated and perhaps reflux-inducing genre mash. Osaka producer Altz attempts to break the old code by starting with the recently reissued work by Roland P. Young, an underground music aficionado and DJ in '60s and '70s San Francisco. Isophonic Boogie Woogie was a 100-LP edition released in 1980 that took elements of Afro jazz, psychedelic music and nascent electronics to produce a spiritual sound very much like a West Coast analogue to Arthur Russell's NYC tone poems. In fact, Altz's mixes, especially lengthy opener "Crystaliquid Sky," resemble the recently released Sleeping Bag Sessions from Russell's early '80s post-disco work. The echo-delayed rhythms and free-jazz explosions of woodwind are loaded elements to play with. Altz manages to serve Young's original vision while also subtly expressing Japanese modes and producing a sound that blurs the eras of "space is the place" jams.