Distilling surf rock, jazz and ambience, energised and patched together with spoken word samples, wind instruments and, blunted hip hop beats, Ali Dada’s album SUM is their invitation to ‘dadaversum’ – their eccentric universe of sound and emotion.
Second single Federici is a fuzzy head nodder of a tune, replete with ambient synths, layers of detail building to a bass-heavy outro that is especially warming.
Featuring Orlando Ludens (guitar & ambient soundscapes), Rulla (beats and field recordings) & Max Licht (brass and trombone), experimentation is the trio’s constant and SUM is the result of a ‘meta-level of jams and associative distillation’ always with a fluid sense of genre.
The three Swiss musicians are all instrumentalists in their own right, two from Zürich and one from the Swiss hinterland amd first crossed paths at Berlin’s Klunkerkranich cultural centre in 2018. They reunited in Switzerland and quickly found themselves in a
creative haze, jamming and performing their first gig together in 2019. In 2020, they released their debut album on the Russian label Leveldva, followed by various singles and EPs. Whilst SUM clearly takes new and furtive steps, Ali Dada’s sound is wholly their own. Nothing feels rigid here and rules don’t apply. Improvisation lingers in the air, even after the last note fades. A series of sound sketches, dense in detail, stylistically rich, SUM gives licence to couch-melt, sungaze or for those used to wintry climes, add another log on the fire.
Ali Dada tend to generate their music through the following process:
- Start without a plan
- Make mistakes
- Recognize the meta level & identify the vibe
- Exaggerate it
The group view each sound as a specific action, which may or may not be recognisable in the final version of the track. In rehearsals, they listen to what they admire in other people’s music. This inspires six-hour explorations and deep-dive jams.
“The songs often emerge from imperfect elements or mistakes, like from a loop or glitch. or something I played that wasn’t quite clean and building on that becomes the challenge” recalls Orlando. Rulla adds “I play a lot of instruments, very, very badly and in music production, I’m trained to craft something awesome out of wonky sounds. That’s how songs emerge from unusual sounds”
As for who played the double bass, no one remembers. Who belongs to the band and who doesn’t is open to interpretation. Though a core group exists the spotlight remains on experimentation through jam sessions. Ali Dada is a construct, a Dadaverse.
Highlights include the album’s opener Abolish the Police, a mix of guitars, weirded-out wind instruments and Häuserfrau’s ever chilled vocal presence. Tone print is the band’s first single from the album, which combines sliding guitar, an anonymous American narrator, some early CPU game sound-splats and a meteoric dope beat, providing the head nodding groove. Ohnedi’s ambient charm features some gorgeous manipulated choir moments and some fidgety electronic synths.
SUM is released on the perfectly formed label YNFND. Also an artist collective + event organisation, this small baltic DIY label is known for its eclectic blend of organic & electronic tunes.
Album launch in Germany 14.09. Hamburg, MS Stubnitz 15.09. Berlin, Gretchen