Album Review: Bogdo Ula's "Prisoners of Freedom"

Bogdo Ula

Prisoners of Freedom - LP

Reviewer: Reed Burnam
4 Stars (Out of 5)

The newest album from Finland’s Bogdo Ula (Prisoners of Freedom, 2011) is a mind-bender. Space-odyssey guitars, a cooking jazz-rock rhythm section, spot-on technical musicianship and an overall sense of total artistic freedom combine to make this disc a stellar listen (pun intended). Light years away from any hint of pop conformity or herd-music mentality, Prisoners of Freedom is a sonic tour-de-force that relentlessly chases down its own muse and comes out the other end of the rabbit hole with some really beautiful and at times challenging compositions.

It’s been said that improv music is primarily musician’s music, and though this reviewer has always taken issue with the underlying presumptiveness of the statement, it doesn’t take much imagination to see the logic there. Bogdo Ula create a sound that, while perhaps not specifically aimed towards a musician’s demographic, is bound to generate plenty of technical oohing and aahing from those possessed of a musical predilection, both in tastes and abilities. However, one need not have any musical background to enjoy the fruits of these labors. Bogdo Ula crafts an unapologetically heady, jazzy maelstrom that pulls from a long history of experimental, psychedelic, and avant-garde influences stretching back over half a century. And they also rock, for good measure.

Present of course are the free-jazz spasms of Ornette Coleman, Peter Brotzmann, and late-era Coltrane, the freak-outs of Zappa and the Mothers, Metheny, and McLaughlin, the space rock explorations of Pink Floyd and Hawkwind, the ecstatic Kraut-jazz-noise of Can, neo-shredders like Vai and Satriani, not to mention a whole generation of Japanese day-trippers receiving psych-communion at the altar of the mighty Acid Mothers Temple. And of course let us not forget the overplayed but never overrated Hendrix and the Experience. The Experience’s most insane power trio moments are often referenced herein (see around 1:35 of “Sounds from the Moonbog”, for starters).

Guitarist Samuli Kristian, Drummer Ivan Horder, and Bassist Jean Ruin comprise a tight, communicative unit, quite adept at extended improvisational excursions due to the mainline running between Horder and Ruin’s propulsive, expressive rhythm lines and Kristian’s inquisitive, volatile fretwork. There’s a nice overall groundwork of call and response, ideas being hashed out in the open air, riffs and runs being allowed ample space to blossom and bloom; all that stuff that makes good improv so difficult to do, and for some of the less inspired amongst us, more difficult to listen to (hence the “musicians’ music” designation). Prisoners of Freedom works out in its twelve tracks a road-map of adeptly maneuvered and expertly played sonic and textural landscapes that constantly cross-reference and return one to the overall solidity of this formidably talented threesome. While the general field of cutting-edge experimental instrumental music (if there can be an actual corralling together of such disparate outfits) has moved on to embrace the outlandishly intense and downright confrontational in recent decades, Bogdo Ula’s brand of probing space-jazz weather reporting is always a welcome old friend at the table.

Individual tracks on Prisoners of Freedom are more or less distinct expeditions in their own right, compartmentalized units that stand alone as well as contain generalized sonic tangents which crop up across the entire album. Tracks like “Sounds from the Moonbog”, “Chicane Runway”, “Dolphian Scale”, and “My Heart is on My Sleeve” take on an edgy, frenetic tone that skews more towards classic free jazz and fusion, while tracks like “Lava Flow”, “The Sand of These Dunes is Recommended by the Sandman”, “From Now on we Move only by Night”, and the title track “Prisoners of Freedom” tend to align more with the flange inflected acid-soaked psych-jazz/rock of Hendrix’s finest on-stage moments. At times tracks take on an aggressive fuzz-drone buzz-bomb approach, such as with the fiery “Identify Yourself”, which comes close to encroaching on the scorched-earth policy of bands like Rhode Island’s mind-blowingly phenomenal Lightning Bolt. Peppered in for good measure are more atmospheric pieces like “Towards the Star” and “Pick up the Beams”, tapping into a collective unconscious of space-jazz-fusion rhetoric that is a well needed reprieve from the amazing yet near constant guitar heroics found most other places on the album.

Holding the whole thing afloat is the musicianship, which is animated and top-notch. Ruin’s bass work is flat-out amazing, and Horder’s percussion is agile and adept at fully committing to whatever the moment demands. Together the rhythm section is damn-near flawless, a powerhouse. Kristian’s guitar work, both in tone and technique, is fantastic, and his bag of tricks runs pretty deep. Coupled with the fact that 99.9% of what you hear on Prisoners of Freedom is both improvisational and single-take recordings (there’s only one overdub on the album), it’s safe to say that this trio is the real deal.

Overall analysis: this record is great. Really great. The only complaint is more of an opinion piece rather than any sustained criticism of the album’s contents, which are excellent. Still, it would be nice to hear on future releases a decision to experiment more with ambient space and more controlled and long-form atmospherics, as the technical side of what Bogdo Ula is doing is well established and could eventually be seen as more theatric than exploratory. Impressive as it is, the urge to shred is often an easier route to chart than the minimal, and a more nuanced blend of approaches would take Bogdo Ula to the next level. Can’t wait to hear what comes next from these guys.

Prisoners of Freedom is available on Itunes and CDBaby, as well as through the band's website.

http://www.bogdo-ula.com/