Premiere: London Six-Piece Cykada Share Energetic Global Jazz Workout “Dimension Stepper”
Written by SOURCE on February 11, 2019
Meet Cykada; featuring Jamie Benzies (bass), Tile Gigichi-Lipere (keys/programming), Timmy Doyle (drums), Axel Kaner-Lidstrom (trumpet), James Mollison (saxophone) and Javi Perez (guitar), they’re best described as a group of jazz luminaries (who have played in groups including EZRA Collective, Maisha and Myriad Forest). Fired up by the new lease of life amid the UK jazz scene, Cykada formed and recorded a body of work in London back in 2017.
Fusing West African highlife, Turkish, Eastern European and modern mutant jazz influences, their new track “Dimension Stepper” isn’t one for chilling to: merging those trusty raw grooves with spacey electronica and global inspiration, this is five-and-a-half minutes for shaking it all off when life gets on top. With a debut album incoming early spring (pre-order here), expect to find traces of broken beat, Sun Ra, Coltrane and Flying Lotus throughout their work.
