I'm always in admiration of musicians who challenge themselves to work outside of their assumed confines, those that have the ability to branch out to other genres while still carrying the charisma of their regular work with them. Colin Langenus is the embodiment of this lifestyle, playing every single type of music from rap to blues to folk, and now, with this arrangement, funk. "Live at Zebulon" find Langenus gathering his friends once again for another epic project chronicled here in four long but killer tracks.
What I enjoy about Langenus is that he never does anything half-assed. Any other person trying their hand at this would just play the music, same ol' line-up, bass, drums, and guitar. What Langenus possesses is an inherit knowledge of what makes music great, how to make a full sound, in this case, adding various horns and, this is what totally does it for me, JAZZ FLUTE. The result is easily comparable to any of Stevie Wonder's earlier works, keenly dead-on instrumentation. Although a little more King Crimson than Parliament at times, the more intensely rocking parts take nothing away, they just make you want to bob your head even more. I suppose most ears might define this as "noise-funk", but the noise feels pretty minimal on this, just slight background gurgle on the last track. This is really more a display of the talent of the musicians within than anything else. If there's anything I'm disappointed about in Langenus' side projects from Usaisamonster, it's that they aren't given a larger light. Given, I might be slightly biased as his solo album, "Living with the Rock", is one of my favorite albums of all time, but considering the strength of most of his discography, I'm gonna keep buying what he's selling.
http://massivedistribution.com/