- The audio-visual duo Masomenos make cute and colourful minimal house, while Vadim Svoboda seems like the studious, noodling type. But they aren't that different compared to the rest of the artists featured on Cosmo Jam01. This is the point and premise of Cosmo Records, an underground dance music label from Morocco. For the last six years, it's been connecting Casablanca to Western dance floors through a program of studio-based exchanges. Cosmo Jam01 is the first in a series of improvised recording sessions, which took place at the CODA: Casablanca Music Centre in 2014.
"Be" is among the more club-ready tracks. Masomenos and Svoboda's metronomic drum programming is the ice to bassist M'hamed El Menjra's fire. It's all lashed together by a common groove, and once the thing finally kicks into gear it sounds like the work of intuitive bandmates. "Dodo" finds Masomenos and Svoboda playing with loops and sequences. Their human touch is present, but everything sounds either warped or militarised by machines, which loses much of the looseness that defines the other tracks.
A darbuka supplies the rhythms on "Kaled" and "Petit," sounding the most Afro-centric. Over 13 minutes long, the former spirits you off to an endless stretch of green palms, sandy desert and star-pocked sky. Abdessamad Bousahfa's violin adds a poignant dimension to Cosmo Jam01, particularly on the delicate but heart-wrenching "Frere." Masomenos and Svoboda play an ambient supporting role here, but their scratchy, metallic interventions are more intrusive on "Mon." Cosmo Jam01 documents a unique cultural meeting that's produced innovative and singular music.
TracklistA1 Be feat. M'Hamed El Menjra
A2 Dodo
B1 Kaled feat. Sannhaji
C1 Mon feat. Abdessamad Bousahfa
D1 Petit feat. Sannhaji
D2 Frere feat. Abdessamad Bousahfa