Kuhn Fu
Kuhn Fu
Kuhn Fu—the currently eight-piece ensemble led by guitarist and composer Christian Kühn—simply takes what it needs: from the wild, unchecked energy of rock, and from the compositional and collaborative freedom of jazz.
Their new album Gamgumsupon is the band’s most direct to date. This fresh marriage of rock and pig-headedness has created something that completely transcends the label of „jazz-rock“. It is liberated rock music, yet at the same time related to jazz—driving forward and exploding in a state of relaxed hilarity. The opener „Metal Jackson“ sets the coordinates immediately: from the very first, the amplifiers are cranked to 12, with guitar and saxophones trading riffs before strings and horns interlock, all while the bass and drums stoically drive everything forward. Kühn has thrown stark loud-quiet dynamics and a fabulously grooving middle section into the mix—complete with a brief, beautiful saxophone freak-out and a more expansive guitar blowout—and the result is a seven-and-a-half-minute big-band prog monster.
The music of Kuhn Fu blends elements of jazz, metal, punk, and big band into a highly distinctive sound, defined by compositional density and an immense joy of playing. The international line-up—featuring Christian Kühn (guitar, composition), Frank Gratkowski (alto sax, flute, clarinet), John Dikeman (tenor sax), Mateusz Rybicki (tenor sax, clarinet), Ziv Taubenfeld (bass clarinet), Sofia Salvo (baritone sax), Esat Ekincioglu (bass), and George Hadow (drums)—plays all of this with virtuosity, but never for its own sake. The crucial element is the sheer fun of it. And the love of contrasts. Humour and seriousness, beauty and exaggeration, meticulously crafted arrangements and free improvisation interpenetrate one another. The starting point for the tracks is frequently a catchy, tonal melody that expands, intensifies, and branches out in different directions as each piece progresses. Veering off on a whim acts as an aesthetic principle, and the wealth of ideas seems infinite. Everything feels as though it is being created right there in the moment, even though the pieces are mapped out down to the finest detail.
„Gamgumsupon“ is the name of a colourful island—a place that, as the saying goes, does not exist in reality (though you can see it on the album cover), but where there is plenty to discover. Take the track „Architecture“, for instance, which unfolds its surprises rather sublimely and with restraint, whilst the driving, highly dynamic „Party“ sounds exactly like its title: five minutes of pure musical joy. Or the subtly lagging groove in „Graced with Gut’s Bounty“, which is gradually layered with raw guitar riffs. Then there is the frantic, driving „Slagroom“, which conjures the atmosphere of traffic chaos, tempo changes included—yet is actually structured with millimetre precision. Christian Kühn explains that when composing the tracks for Gamgumsupon, it was about finding his way back to a new simplicity.
And you can hear it: everything that is complex in this hybrid music never sounds complicated. Frank Gratkowski’s free-jazz sax intro to „Slagroom“, for example, lacks any of the solemn earnestness of the avant-garde, radiating pure cheerfulness instead. Indeed, humour plays a massive role in Kuhn Fu’s music, even if it is far more subtle here than on the predecessor album Katastrofik Kink Machine or the jazz-rock-whatever opera Jazz Is Expensive. On Gamgumsupon, it resonates in song titles like „Hairy Fish with Legs that Tries to Climb a Tree“—a shambolic, melancholic slice of New Orleans Mardi Gras music. It is equally present in the stop-and-go fairground-polka inferno of the title track (the only one on the album to feature Kühn’s vocals), as well as in the delightfully cheesy, eerie kitsch of the closing track, „Goodbye and See You Soon“.
Kuhn Fu themselves call their music „Jazz Punk Psychedelia“, and that hits the nail right on the head. With Gamgumsupon, they have added a massive extra shovel of hard rock on top.
