MoonJune 2026
Harnessing fantastic melodies, Spanish master of adventurous beats corrals friends for a feast of sonic fluidity.
ELECTRIC QUINTET –
Nu Breed
To have a proper outfit to work with must have been Xavi Reija’s objective for some time, but the stellar team the Catalan drummer gathered on 2018’s "The Sound Of The Earth" couldn’t qualify as his own. As a result, the Altafulla escapist resorted to using the blistering "Dreamscape Room" as a means of condensing his compositional and performative approach before “Nu Breed” reformatted it all again. This record contracted the “Xavier” tag of the preceding one to let Raija explore contemporary avenues in the context of a five-piece ensemble he seemed to abandon two decades ago – almost perfectly restoring the company of the kindred spirits he’s known for years. As axeman Dušan Jevtović, bassist Bernat Hernández and saxophonist Rafael Garcés take their usual places alongside Xavi and freshly recruited ivories driver Tomàs Fosch, the band’s interplay scale impressive heights without blinding the listener. A paradoxical balance, yes, and that’s what should make the collective’s return so special.
It’s very much obvious on the combo’s comeback to numbers from Reija’s trio albums, "Resolution" and "Reflections" – gently swept by gossamer passages of Fender Rhodes and stricken with brass licks, the unpredictably, if always wondrously, coiling “We Keep Walking” sounds like a statement here – yet recently written tunes present no less striking estimate of Xavi’s progress as a musician. His ever-shifting grooves are arresting on a purely rhythmical and dynamic level, but drums parts don’t get detached from the arrangements they fuel from start to finish, although “Dreamland” – which ties bottom-end rumble to kaleidoscopic harmonies – and the revisited “Dreamscape Room” bring deceptively simple patterns to the surface of the group’s often extemporaneous swirl. So when heavy riffs appear at the fore of “Are You Religious?” that rocks rather wildly, the audience can’t be surprised, at least until Eastern motifs shine through the fuzz, because the funky “Dusan V3.0” prepares everybody’s tastebuds for the effusive spiciness, where trad jazz elements make an appearance.
And while “Reflections” feels too elegiac, its rich instrumentation and overall flow between the quintet members reveal the ballad’s previously unfathomed space, the depths which the record’s title track plumbs too, with a lot of jovial vigor in the artists’ solo spots. And then there’s “Two Sides” that serves up the album’s dance-inducing finale – filigreed and multilayered, but still extremely catchy. As is the entire platter, exciting and inviting.
*****
