Cucumber ~ No Slumber
Cucumber hit the
ground running with superfast muscular drumming, attack-mode sax, fuzzed-up
bass and pounding keyboards. The group continue to accelerate right up to
the last moment of first track Garbage Can. Waltzing Fluteplayer delivers
sharp horn stabs before loping along like a panther in third gear as Tor Yttredal
traces ziggurat arpeggios and trades wanton licks with Storløkken’s
noisome keyboard figures – no sign of a fluteplayer anywhere though!
A Little Minor Song is wheezy and melancholic and quite beautiful in a Cluster-like
way. Stale Storløkken is probably the best known member of the group
for his involvement with Supersilent. The group take their name from Weather
Report’s Mysterious Traveller and that album’s influence is unmistakable.
However, Cucumber are no pale imitation: the group’s compositions follow
the spirit rather than the letter of their seminal forebears. No Slumber alternates
brilliant, high energy playing with more reflective pieces to great effect.
Colin Buttimer
June 2004
Published by Jazzwise magazine