Humble Grumble — Guzzle it Up! (2013) |
Humble Grumble — Guzzle it Up!
¬ With Guzzle it up Humble Grumble follows their path increasing the quality of the music in every aspects, skill, melodies, inspiration… A tangible sign of maturity and quality for one of the most original ensemble of the last years.
¬ Led by singer/guitarist Gabor "Humble" Vörös, Belgium's jazzy and Zappa-esque Humble Grumble began on a somewhat folkier side.
Formed 1996 in Ghent, Belgium
Location: Ghent, Belgium
Styles: Avant-Prog, Jazz-Rock, Experimental Rock, Prog-Rock
Album release: February 27, 2013
Record Label: AltrOck
Duration: 44:27
Tracks:
1 Kurt's Casino 9:53
2 The Little Man 3:54
3 Accidentally in San Sebastian 4:22
4 The Campfire Strikes Back 4:39
5 The Dancing Dinosaur 10:29
6 Skunks 5:03
7 Pate a Tartiner 6:07
Written by:
¬ Gabor "Humble" Vörös: 1, 2, 3, 7
¬ Jonathan Callens / Gabor "Humble" Vörös: 4
¬ James Drake / Gabor "Humble" Vörös: 5
¬ Klaas Van Heddeghem / Gabor "Humble" Vörös: 6
Line-up:
* Gabor Humble Vörös — guitar, vocals
* Megan Quill — vocals
* Liesbeth Verlaet — vocals
* Jouni Isoherranen — bass, keyboards
* Jonathan Callens — drums
* Pol Mareen — saxophone
* Pedro Guridi — bass clarinet
* Joren Cautaers — vibraphone, percussion
With:
* Pieter Claus — marimba solo (1)
* Jana Voros — baby sounds (3)
* Lisa Jordens — backing vocals (3)
Francisca Rose — pronouncing “tartiner” correctly (3)
Credits:
¬ Jonathan Callens Composer, Drums
¬ Joern Cautaers Percussion, Vibraphone
¬ Pieter Claus Guest Artist, Marimba, Soloist
¬ James Drake Composer
¬ Michel Eloot Photography
¬ Pedro Guridi Clarinet (Bass)
¬ Jouni Isoherranen Bass, Keyboards
¬ Lisa Jordens Guest Artist, Vocals (Background)
¬ Pol Mareen Saxophone
¬ Megan Quill Vocals
¬ Andrea Rizzardo Mastering
¬ Francisca Rose Guest Artist
¬ Klaas Van Heddeghem Composer
¬ Liesbeth Verlaet Vocals
¬ Gabor "Humble" Vörös Composer, Engineer, Guitar, Producer, Vocals
¬ Jana Voros Guest Artist
Album Moods: Energetic Manic Quirky Complex Exuberant Irreverent Boisterous
Review by Dave Lynch; Score: ****
•¬ "Kurt's Casino," the opening track on Humble Grumble's second AltrOck release, 2013's Guzzle It Up!, sparkles so brightly that you may want to wear sunglasses when listening to the tune. The rhythm is infectious, the vibraphone shines, and the saxophone/bass clarinet accents are upbeat and amiable; it would seem almost a crime to sing along in anything lower than a falsetto — which, in fact, is what frontman/guitarist Gabor "Humble" Vörös does, at least initially. Add the sunny harmonies of vocalists Megan Quill and Liesbeth Verlaet, whose CD booklet photo shows them wearing matching frilly skirts and over-the-knee socks, and obviously the listener is in for a happy-go-lucky, rollicking good time. By the way, the lyrics are about Kurt blowing his brains out with a revolver. Yes, it appears that Vörös still likes to pair up crazy-fun, head-spinning music with heavy subject matter, as he did when mixing a song about a legacy of battlefield carnage into the generally wackier track listing of Humble Grumble's 2011 AltrOck outing, Flanders Fields. Stay with "Kurt's Casino" a while longer, though, and it becomes more like a phone call to a suicide prevention service as Vörös exhorts "People, listen to the sound, don't play the game/In painful ways/Tonight, the music plays and the fire burns again/Just once again...." and the band takes off into a "Caravan"-esque 13/8 theme with solo features for marimbist Pieter Claus and saxophonist Pol Mareen until everybody picks up the pace and the tempo accelerates like an increasingly frenetic Eastern European circle dance.
•¬ It's ultimately invigorating, and in the song's context perhaps life-affirming, but a silly refrain like "Garden hose, garden hose" in the next track, "The Little Man," somehow seems a better marriage of words and music (not to mention Vörös' end-of-song comment: "Thank you very much for listening to my useless reflection/I hope I did not bore you!"). Still, the arrangements throughout Guzzle It Up! — both instrumental and vocal — are completely whacked-out. "Accidentally in San Sebastian" initially suggests free-bop jazz accompanying a beat poetry reading; later interludes jump from pseudo rap and looped baby-ish and animal sounds with angelic wordless vocal backing to circular rhythmic aboriginal funk and X-Legged Sally-style tight reed riffing. "The Campfire Strikes Back" is — what? — harmolodic car horn-mimicking ska? (It also transitions into fractured swing, pure Zappa vocal hijinks, and back again.) Those who want Vörös to shut up and play his guitar get their wish in the ten-plus-minute "The Dancing Dinosaur," which turns the vocals over to the women and also gives Mareen an opportunity to stretch out over a roomy modern creative jazz arrangement (there's also a bluegrass-style break elsewhere in the song). Then "Skunks" arrives, and Vörös sings about waking up in the morning, his partner by his side, and smelling something stinky when he lifts up the blanket. At least the music isn't stinky in the slightest. © Humble Grumble, příšerný název kapely vs nečekaně inspirativní hudba na hranici geniality. Picture by Michel Eloot
REVIEW
By Rok Podgrajšek; Score: 9 out of 10!
•¬ It seems that the first Humble Grumble album just arrived and it stayed in heavy rotation on my CD player and now the band announces already the release of their new album, Guzzle It Up. Has it really been that long? Well, yes. Flanders Fields was released 2 years ago! It seems like yesterday. Would Guzzle It Up be able to hold a candle to Flanders Fields?
•¬ The familiar Humble Grumble sounds hit you straight away — the jazzy and vocal Zappa moments, intermixed with humorous Canterbury. It’s that “classic” Humble Grumble sound, which main man Gabor Voros has taken years to develop. There’s something about the music that brings a sense of joy to you. I have to admit I didn’t really follow the lyrics, but the whole thing (vocals and instruments) have a very humorous effect on me. When Gabor attempts to rap, my grin just gets bigger and I’m sucked in even more. What an infectious band! The moments of ethnic Eastern European flavour certainly give the music even more “happiness”, if that was even possible.
•¬ While the typical jazz and Canterbury instruments (guitar, percussion, saxophone, etc.) are used in abundance and with high quality, the instrument that steals the show on this album is yet again the vibraphone. The marimba guest spot is also highly amusing. I don’t know what it is about these two instruments that really does it for me. •¬ However, as usual, a splendid instrumental and vocal performance from all involved. Perhaps some might not enjoy the comical vocal stylings, but for me, they’re part of the package.
•¬ Guzzle It Up is an album that will put a smile on your face from the first second and it’ll stay there until the very end. How many so-called experimental bands are able to do that? Not many, I would say. Thoroughly enjoyable listening! 9 out of 10! (http://www.therocktologist.com/)
Also:
By Raffaella Berry on July 27, 2013
:: http://www.prog-sphere.com/reviews/humble-grumble-guzzle-it-up/
By Jochen Rindfrey
:: http://www.babyblaue-seiten.de/album_13311.html
View the video by Lisa Akinyi May & Sarah Driba on supo.be, :: www.supo.be/artikel/4381/Humble_Grumble_Atypische_muziekband
_______________________________________________________________
Artist Biography by Dave Lynch
•¬ Crazed jazzy and avant-proggy Belgian ensemble Humble Grumble seem "Zappa-esque" in their meld of anything-goes music and sometimes outrageous, sometimes incongruously dark lyrics, but the roots of the band are on the somewhat folkier side. •¬ Hungarian singer/guitarist Gabor "Humble" Vörös wandered around Europe before settling in the Ghent, Belgium area in 1993. He participated in a number of musical projects, including a somewhat oddball folk-rock outfit named Dearest Companion, also featuring multi-instrumentalist Tom Theuns. Vörös (on guitar and vocals) and Theuns (on bass) formed Humble Grumble in 1996, and a quintet version of the group toured Switzerland and Germany and recorded a pair of demos that year, The Golden Pile and The Tom and Gabor Special. (Singer/guitarist David Bovée was another member of Dearest Companion, and Bovée later went on to form Think of One, whose debut disc, 1998's Juggernaut, featured appearances by Humble Grumble's musicians.) Theuns would soon depart the group, however, to form Ambrozijn with violinist Wouter Van Den Abeele, and Humble Grumble largely became a vehicle for realizing whatever ideas might spring from Vörös' imagination.
•¬ After the privately released Dreamwavepatterns in 2000 and Rockstar in 2004, Humble Grumble issued 30 Years Kolinda on the Pan Records label in 2005. Vörös had become enamored of the music of Hungarian folk outfit Kolinda, and embarked on the 30 Years Kolinda project and album after meeting group mainstay Peter Dabasi in Budapest. To mark Kolinda's 30th anniversary, Vörös invited Dabasi to perform live with Humble Grumble, and, aside from one track, the associated 30 Years Kolinda album featured Dabasi compositions exclusively. The album also marked the arrival of several musicians who would remain key members of Humble Grumble in the future: saxophonist Pol Mareen, clarinetist Pedro Guridi, and bassist Jouni Isoherranen.
•¬ Several years would pass between the release of 2005's 30 Years Kolinda and Humble Grumble's next album, The Face of Humble Grumble, which arrived in 2008 on the Cocktail Soul Productions label and featured re-recordings of material from Dreamwavepatterns and Rockstar. In addition to Vörös, Mareen, Guridi, and Isoherranen, the musicians on The Face of Humble Grumble also included Pieter Claus on marimba, Jonathan Callens on drums, and a pair of singers, Megan Quill and Franciska Roose, who good-naturedly harmonized with decidedly quirky frontman Vörös. From that point forward, Humble Grumble would settle into a lineup of guitar/vocals, saxophone, clarinet, marimba/vibraphone, bass, and drums, plus female vocal chorus and other guests.
•¬ Several years would pass between the release of 2005's 30 Years Kolinda and Humble Grumble's next album, The Face of Humble Grumble, which arrived in 2008 on the Cocktail Soul Productions label and featured re-recordings of material from Dreamwavepatterns and Rockstar. In addition to Vörös, Mareen, Guridi, and Isoherranen, the musicians on The Face of Humble Grumble also included Pieter Claus on marimba, Jonathan Callens on drums, and a pair of singers, Megan Quill and Franciska Roose, who good-naturedly harmonized with decidedly quirky frontman Vörös. From that point forward, Humble Grumble would settle into a lineup of guitar/vocals, saxophone, clarinet, marimba/vibraphone, bass, and drums, plus female vocal chorus and other guests.
•¬ Meanwhile, to the south in Milan, Italy, producer Marcello Marinone and friends at the AltrOck label were taking notice of Humble Grumble, and ultimately concluded that the group would fit in well with the imprint's avant-prog artist roster. Providing the group with its widest distribution yet, AltrOck released the ambitious yet crazily offbeat Flanders Fields CD in 2011; the album featured Vörös, Mareen, Guridi, Isoherranen, Claus, and Callens, plus Quill and Roose among a slew of 11 guest musicians, most of them vocalists. Two years later, Humble Grumble returned with their second AltrOck release, Guzzle It Up!, featuring the same basic core lineup plus guests; singer Quill was now deemed a full bandmember but Roose had departed, with Liesbeth Verlaet joining Quill in the band's female vocal duo (with matching nautical motif miniskirts and over-the-knee socks), and Joren Cautaers was the group's new vibraphonist, although Pieter Claus took a "guest" marimba solo on one track.
Recent releases:
•¬ 30 Years Kolinda (PAN records)
•¬ The Face of Humble Grumble (Cocktailsoul Productions)
•¬ Flanders Fields (Altrock Productions)
•¬ Guzzle it Up! (Altrock Productions)
Links:
Website: http://www.humblegrumble.com/
MySpace: https://myspace.com/humblegrumble
Label: http://www.altrock.it
Management & Bookings
Mosca Blanca
Ferdinand Vervaeckestraat 24 — 8870 Izegem
0485/62.75.14
erkenningsnummer: VG.1318/BA
_______________________________________________________________
Humble Grumble — Guzzle it Up! (2013) |
Humble Grumble — Guzzle it Up!
¬ With Guzzle it up Humble Grumble follows their path increasing the quality of the music in every aspects, skill, melodies, inspiration… A tangible sign of maturity and quality for one of the most original ensemble of the last years.
¬ Led by singer/guitarist Gabor "Humble" Vörös, Belgium's jazzy and Zappa-esque Humble Grumble began on a somewhat folkier side.
Formed 1996 in Ghent, Belgium
Location: Ghent, Belgium
Styles: Avant-Prog, Jazz-Rock, Experimental Rock, Prog-Rock
Album release: February 27, 2013
Record Label: AltrOck
Duration: 44:27
Tracks:
1 Kurt's Casino 9:53
2 The Little Man 3:54
3 Accidentally in San Sebastian 4:22
4 The Campfire Strikes Back 4:39
5 The Dancing Dinosaur 10:29
6 Skunks 5:03
7 Pate a Tartiner 6:07
Written by:
¬ Gabor "Humble" Vörös: 1, 2, 3, 7
¬ Jonathan Callens / Gabor "Humble" Vörös: 4
¬ James Drake / Gabor "Humble" Vörös: 5
¬ Klaas Van Heddeghem / Gabor "Humble" Vörös: 6
Line-up:
* Gabor Humble Vörös — guitar, vocals
* Megan Quill — vocals
* Liesbeth Verlaet — vocals
* Jouni Isoherranen — bass, keyboards
* Jonathan Callens — drums
* Pol Mareen — saxophone
* Pedro Guridi — bass clarinet
* Joren Cautaers — vibraphone, percussion
With:
* Pieter Claus — marimba solo (1)
* Jana Voros — baby sounds (3)
* Lisa Jordens — backing vocals (3)
Francisca Rose — pronouncing “tartiner” correctly (3)
Credits:
¬ Jonathan Callens Composer, Drums
¬ Joern Cautaers Percussion, Vibraphone
¬ Pieter Claus Guest Artist, Marimba, Soloist
¬ James Drake Composer
¬ Michel Eloot Photography
¬ Pedro Guridi Clarinet (Bass)
¬ Jouni Isoherranen Bass, Keyboards
¬ Lisa Jordens Guest Artist, Vocals (Background)
¬ Pol Mareen Saxophone
¬ Megan Quill Vocals
¬ Andrea Rizzardo Mastering
¬ Francisca Rose Guest Artist
¬ Klaas Van Heddeghem Composer
¬ Liesbeth Verlaet Vocals
¬ Gabor "Humble" Vörös Composer, Engineer, Guitar, Producer, Vocals
¬ Jana Voros Guest Artist
Album Moods: Energetic Manic Quirky Complex Exuberant Irreverent Boisterous
Review by Dave Lynch; Score: ****
•¬ "Kurt's Casino," the opening track on Humble Grumble's second AltrOck release, 2013's Guzzle It Up!, sparkles so brightly that you may want to wear sunglasses when listening to the tune. The rhythm is infectious, the vibraphone shines, and the saxophone/bass clarinet accents are upbeat and amiable; it would seem almost a crime to sing along in anything lower than a falsetto — which, in fact, is what frontman/guitarist Gabor "Humble" Vörös does, at least initially. Add the sunny harmonies of vocalists Megan Quill and Liesbeth Verlaet, whose CD booklet photo shows them wearing matching frilly skirts and over-the-knee socks, and obviously the listener is in for a happy-go-lucky, rollicking good time. By the way, the lyrics are about Kurt blowing his brains out with a revolver. Yes, it appears that Vörös still likes to pair up crazy-fun, head-spinning music with heavy subject matter, as he did when mixing a song about a legacy of battlefield carnage into the generally wackier track listing of Humble Grumble's 2011 AltrOck outing, Flanders Fields. Stay with "Kurt's Casino" a while longer, though, and it becomes more like a phone call to a suicide prevention service as Vörös exhorts "People, listen to the sound, don't play the game/In painful ways/Tonight, the music plays and the fire burns again/Just once again...." and the band takes off into a "Caravan"-esque 13/8 theme with solo features for marimbist Pieter Claus and saxophonist Pol Mareen until everybody picks up the pace and the tempo accelerates like an increasingly frenetic Eastern European circle dance.
•¬ It's ultimately invigorating, and in the song's context perhaps life-affirming, but a silly refrain like "Garden hose, garden hose" in the next track, "The Little Man," somehow seems a better marriage of words and music (not to mention Vörös' end-of-song comment: "Thank you very much for listening to my useless reflection/I hope I did not bore you!"). Still, the arrangements throughout Guzzle It Up! — both instrumental and vocal — are completely whacked-out. "Accidentally in San Sebastian" initially suggests free-bop jazz accompanying a beat poetry reading; later interludes jump from pseudo rap and looped baby-ish and animal sounds with angelic wordless vocal backing to circular rhythmic aboriginal funk and X-Legged Sally-style tight reed riffing. "The Campfire Strikes Back" is — what? — harmolodic car horn-mimicking ska? (It also transitions into fractured swing, pure Zappa vocal hijinks, and back again.) Those who want Vörös to shut up and play his guitar get their wish in the ten-plus-minute "The Dancing Dinosaur," which turns the vocals over to the women and also gives Mareen an opportunity to stretch out over a roomy modern creative jazz arrangement (there's also a bluegrass-style break elsewhere in the song). Then "Skunks" arrives, and Vörös sings about waking up in the morning, his partner by his side, and smelling something stinky when he lifts up the blanket. At least the music isn't stinky in the slightest. © Humble Grumble, příšerný název kapely vs nečekaně inspirativní hudba na hranici geniality. Picture by Michel Eloot
REVIEW
By Rok Podgrajšek; Score: 9 out of 10!
•¬ It seems that the first Humble Grumble album just arrived and it stayed in heavy rotation on my CD player and now the band announces already the release of their new album, Guzzle It Up. Has it really been that long? Well, yes. Flanders Fields was released 2 years ago! It seems like yesterday. Would Guzzle It Up be able to hold a candle to Flanders Fields?
•¬ The familiar Humble Grumble sounds hit you straight away — the jazzy and vocal Zappa moments, intermixed with humorous Canterbury. It’s that “classic” Humble Grumble sound, which main man Gabor Voros has taken years to develop. There’s something about the music that brings a sense of joy to you. I have to admit I didn’t really follow the lyrics, but the whole thing (vocals and instruments) have a very humorous effect on me. When Gabor attempts to rap, my grin just gets bigger and I’m sucked in even more. What an infectious band! The moments of ethnic Eastern European flavour certainly give the music even more “happiness”, if that was even possible.
•¬ While the typical jazz and Canterbury instruments (guitar, percussion, saxophone, etc.) are used in abundance and with high quality, the instrument that steals the show on this album is yet again the vibraphone. The marimba guest spot is also highly amusing. I don’t know what it is about these two instruments that really does it for me. •¬ However, as usual, a splendid instrumental and vocal performance from all involved. Perhaps some might not enjoy the comical vocal stylings, but for me, they’re part of the package.
•¬ Guzzle It Up is an album that will put a smile on your face from the first second and it’ll stay there until the very end. How many so-called experimental bands are able to do that? Not many, I would say. Thoroughly enjoyable listening! 9 out of 10! (http://www.therocktologist.com/)
Also:
By Raffaella Berry on July 27, 2013
:: http://www.prog-sphere.com/reviews/humble-grumble-guzzle-it-up/
By Jochen Rindfrey
:: http://www.babyblaue-seiten.de/album_13311.html
View the video by Lisa Akinyi May & Sarah Driba on supo.be, :: www.supo.be/artikel/4381/Humble_Grumble_Atypische_muziekband
_______________________________________________________________
Artist Biography by Dave Lynch
•¬ Crazed jazzy and avant-proggy Belgian ensemble Humble Grumble seem "Zappa-esque" in their meld of anything-goes music and sometimes outrageous, sometimes incongruously dark lyrics, but the roots of the band are on the somewhat folkier side. •¬ Hungarian singer/guitarist Gabor "Humble" Vörös wandered around Europe before settling in the Ghent, Belgium area in 1993. He participated in a number of musical projects, including a somewhat oddball folk-rock outfit named Dearest Companion, also featuring multi-instrumentalist Tom Theuns. Vörös (on guitar and vocals) and Theuns (on bass) formed Humble Grumble in 1996, and a quintet version of the group toured Switzerland and Germany and recorded a pair of demos that year, The Golden Pile and The Tom and Gabor Special. (Singer/guitarist David Bovée was another member of Dearest Companion, and Bovée later went on to form Think of One, whose debut disc, 1998's Juggernaut, featured appearances by Humble Grumble's musicians.) Theuns would soon depart the group, however, to form Ambrozijn with violinist Wouter Van Den Abeele, and Humble Grumble largely became a vehicle for realizing whatever ideas might spring from Vörös' imagination.
•¬ After the privately released Dreamwavepatterns in 2000 and Rockstar in 2004, Humble Grumble issued 30 Years Kolinda on the Pan Records label in 2005. Vörös had become enamored of the music of Hungarian folk outfit Kolinda, and embarked on the 30 Years Kolinda project and album after meeting group mainstay Peter Dabasi in Budapest. To mark Kolinda's 30th anniversary, Vörös invited Dabasi to perform live with Humble Grumble, and, aside from one track, the associated 30 Years Kolinda album featured Dabasi compositions exclusively. The album also marked the arrival of several musicians who would remain key members of Humble Grumble in the future: saxophonist Pol Mareen, clarinetist Pedro Guridi, and bassist Jouni Isoherranen.
•¬ Several years would pass between the release of 2005's 30 Years Kolinda and Humble Grumble's next album, The Face of Humble Grumble, which arrived in 2008 on the Cocktail Soul Productions label and featured re-recordings of material from Dreamwavepatterns and Rockstar. In addition to Vörös, Mareen, Guridi, and Isoherranen, the musicians on The Face of Humble Grumble also included Pieter Claus on marimba, Jonathan Callens on drums, and a pair of singers, Megan Quill and Franciska Roose, who good-naturedly harmonized with decidedly quirky frontman Vörös. From that point forward, Humble Grumble would settle into a lineup of guitar/vocals, saxophone, clarinet, marimba/vibraphone, bass, and drums, plus female vocal chorus and other guests.
•¬ Several years would pass between the release of 2005's 30 Years Kolinda and Humble Grumble's next album, The Face of Humble Grumble, which arrived in 2008 on the Cocktail Soul Productions label and featured re-recordings of material from Dreamwavepatterns and Rockstar. In addition to Vörös, Mareen, Guridi, and Isoherranen, the musicians on The Face of Humble Grumble also included Pieter Claus on marimba, Jonathan Callens on drums, and a pair of singers, Megan Quill and Franciska Roose, who good-naturedly harmonized with decidedly quirky frontman Vörös. From that point forward, Humble Grumble would settle into a lineup of guitar/vocals, saxophone, clarinet, marimba/vibraphone, bass, and drums, plus female vocal chorus and other guests.
•¬ Meanwhile, to the south in Milan, Italy, producer Marcello Marinone and friends at the AltrOck label were taking notice of Humble Grumble, and ultimately concluded that the group would fit in well with the imprint's avant-prog artist roster. Providing the group with its widest distribution yet, AltrOck released the ambitious yet crazily offbeat Flanders Fields CD in 2011; the album featured Vörös, Mareen, Guridi, Isoherranen, Claus, and Callens, plus Quill and Roose among a slew of 11 guest musicians, most of them vocalists. Two years later, Humble Grumble returned with their second AltrOck release, Guzzle It Up!, featuring the same basic core lineup plus guests; singer Quill was now deemed a full bandmember but Roose had departed, with Liesbeth Verlaet joining Quill in the band's female vocal duo (with matching nautical motif miniskirts and over-the-knee socks), and Joren Cautaers was the group's new vibraphonist, although Pieter Claus took a "guest" marimba solo on one track.
Recent releases:
•¬ 30 Years Kolinda (PAN records)
•¬ The Face of Humble Grumble (Cocktailsoul Productions)
•¬ Flanders Fields (Altrock Productions)
•¬ Guzzle it Up! (Altrock Productions)
Links:
Website: http://www.humblegrumble.com/
MySpace: https://myspace.com/humblegrumble
Label: http://www.altrock.it
Management & Bookings
Mosca Blanca
Ferdinand Vervaeckestraat 24 — 8870 Izegem
0485/62.75.14
erkenningsnummer: VG.1318/BA
_______________________________________________________________