What People Say
Review by
Jose Zegarra Holder
Beat Love Oracle is a Belgian quartet that emerged from the creative afterglow of the eclectic chamber-jazz-rock ensemble Hardscore. Formed in 2017 by Frank Nuyts, the former leader and primary composer of Hardscore, Beat Love Oracle continues the musical exploration in a more compact, yet equally ambitious form.
With Nuyts at the helm wielding marimba and synthesizers, and Frank Debruyne blending his talents on saxes and synthesizers, the band is a reincarnation of Hardscore’s adventurous spirit, albeit with a new edge. The rhythm section, powered by Ronald Dhaene’s versatile drumming and Stijn Deldaele’s electric bass — occasionally adding vocoder-tinged vocals — gives the quartet its heartbeat.
Their music is a meticulously composed labyrinth, threading through improvisational jazz, chamber precision, and the spirit of Frank Zappa. With each release, Beat Love Oracle reinforces their reputation for fusing genres into a signature sound that resists easy categorization, earning them a spot among the avant-garde and experimental circles.
“Dangerous Liquids,” the latest album from Beat Love Oracle, is a tapestry of controlled chaos. It’s an album that speaks in a myriad of musical dialects, from the improvisational fluency of jazz to the structural complexity of contemporary classical music, all underpinned by an electronic heartbeat that adds a modern sheen to the entire endeavor.
Tracks like “Shaky Balance” exhibit the band’s ability to meld structured composition with the visceral energy of a live jam session, while “SOSpresso” displays an almost confrontational intensity with its driving saxophone lines and relentless groove.
The record’s production embraces clarity, allowing each instrument to converse and clash in equal measure.
In “Dangerous Liquids,” Beat Love Oracle continues to chart their own course, unbound by genre constraints, offering an album that is as intellectually stimulating as it is viscerally engaging. With nods to their influences yet an eye on the horizon, the band proves once again that they are more than a sum of their parts — they are the pulse of contemporary fusion, relentless in their pursuit of the unexplored.
https://www.ivoox.com/tsom-02-16-beat-love-oracle-dangerous-liquids-audios-mp3_rf_112405191_1.html
Review by
new_dawn_of_prog
After the album “Don’t Count on Us” from 2022, Beat Love Oracle returns with a new album called “Dangerous Liquids”, which saw the light of day on November 3, 2023, via áMARXE. Open minds, sound adventurers and hard-boiled jazz fusion listeners will certainly be delighted by the musical eruptions, the intricately rhythmic formations, the wild maelstroms, prog lovers have come to the right place as well. Beat Love Oracle are clearly a special experience, here we have a perfect combination of improvisation and its implementation in compositions that make perfect sonic landscapes, organized chaos that is detailed and perfectly represents the band in its asymmetrical development, which is incredibly full of ideas. It is never redundant, never rolls up on unnecessary space and everything is always kept just within the limits of indescribable tension. The music is dense and ambitious, quite complex, demanding, polychrome but never kitsch, exotic but never caricature, modern and traditional together. This album from minute to minute becomes majestic by proposing a mélange of crystalline class, a very refined distillate where every note, every sound, is perfectly pigeonholed in its place in an intricate but very effective sonic mechanism. It is an engine that runs smoothly, freely, without hesitation. Ronald DHAENE confirms himself as a master in drawing varied and unpredictable rhythmic textures, and together with Stijn DELDAELE he creates a rhythmic base of considerable depth; powerful bass stabs supported by amphetamine-like drumming, hypnotic transitions, and dilated and enriched moments by superb individual excursions, but also with a common approach. Frank DEBRUYNE gives ample vent to his sax talent before the burst of the entire band, which is sometimes truly devastating and explosive. We also have elements of muffled, warm atmosphere punctuated by multiple sounds, more languid and well blended, denoting among other things the great flexibility of the musicians. The album flows rapidly, alternating valuable instrumental sections, halfway between jazz fusion technique, avant garde, and some caressing melodies.
The gradual build-up of tension, spiced up with some dissonant RIO outbursts, complicated, extremely interesting interludes, many facets of brilliant marimba playing between filigree jazz runs, incredibly beautiful melodic moments, also sax which brings out-of-tune howling riffing and which is often in a powerful union with layers of sonic moments, all this mercilessly tugs at your nerves until you’re released with the re-entry of fantastically constructed and incredible structures. Great attention should be paid to the moments when the band presses the accelerator on overload: inspiration, fragments, quotations, sudden changes, theatrical turns, and strange and fantastic melodies. Here, we are convinced that we are in the company of a well-trained and motivated group, engaging in numerous acrobatics between instinct and technique, every moment gives that special note that keeps you on the edge of your seat and on the verge of exploding your brain. Those who dare to go on this journey will realize that they have a masterpiece in front of them. @rafamargen @beat_love_oracle #beatloveoracle #prog #progrock #progressiverock #progressiverockcommunity #progrockcommunity #progressiverockmusic #progrockband #progrockmusic #jazzfusion #avantgardeprog #avantgarde #2023prog
Review by
Lazland - Peter Thelen
Beat Love Oracle released Turning the Table at the back end of 2022, and I reviewed it last year, stating in my headline that it was “ever so slightly barking, but interesting fare”. The link to that review is below. Now, November 2023 saw the release of Dangerous Liquids, once more on the ÁMARXE label, which is responsible for some fascinating music, for sure.
The core band is Frank Nuyts on marimba, synth, and vocals (he writes the bulk of the material); Frank Debruyne on sax, synths, and vocals; Stijn Deldaele on bass & vocals; and Ronald Dhaene on drums and multipad. Guests on this are Joshua Dellaert who plays bass on “Two Whales Crashing a Beach Party for 2 electric basses” (what a title for a piece of music) and Jeff Nuyttens who creates electronic soundscapes on the same piece.
So, Belgian fusion which I recommended last year, but warned that a degree of patience was required. Have I changed my view at all?
There are eight tracks here. We start off with the title track, and immediately you are struck by the feelgood vibe, somewhat belying the title, although I suppose that my beloved real ale is classed as such by the medical chappies, and I take no notice of that whatsoever. The sax on this is beguiling and the bass grooves equally enticing. It is a great start to proceedings, a track which belongs firmly in bars across the civilised world. You will, I think, particularly enjoy the percussion noises created.
Shaky Balance (on a solid ground) follows. It is the second longest track here at 7:39. The start reminds me of the wonderful thematic music to The Pink Panther (films and cartoon) and there is here more than a bit of the element of playfulness you got with those classics, alongside some very interesting synth noises and effects. Whilst it is not exactly music to “relax” to (certainly not when you listen to the dystopian voices), it certainly is something I recommend being accompanied by a glass of single malt at home on a dark, cold, winter’s night to bring a wee bit of warmth to life. That sax and bass interplay is simply divine.
Barefoot on Thin Ice, as opposed to the Skating Away beloved of classic Tull fans, fascinates me, because when you close your eyes and concentrate on the music, at first it sounds like some form of classic noodling, but in reality after repeated listens, you see the subject gingerly tip toeing across the frozen wasteland, as if every step could be his last. The percussion is complex and deeply satisfying in its cleverness.
SOSpresso is a great title, a wonderful play on product words. The start recalls a person in crisis, a worker in desperate need of that caffeine hit to enable one to keep going, with the sax and drums combining to bring a sense of chaos. The “what else” sequence brings said hit, with the bass going mental in its intensity before the inevitable comedown. I have no doubt whatsoever that others will have a completely different take on this to me, but such is the joy of this form of musical expression.
Next up is Sticky Stomp (all the crack of dawn). A search for “sticky stomp” brings with it a cartoon series about a family of bumble bees, The Hive. Now, whether this was the intent, I know not, but there is certainly an industriousness to this piece which reminds one of the intensity of worker bees going about their business in the sticky hive, stomping across, feeding the Queen’s demand for nutrition for the next hive generation, the percussion and bass again providing an intensity to the sax’s lead musings, and there are some delightful synth chords on this track creating a thoughtful overlay. The applause, voices, and police sirens then take one to what I believe to be the true intent, that of a slumbering city within which there is a distinct sub-culture of nightlife, and you are transported to, say, New York and classic films such as Taxi Driver. There is, therefore, an awful lot going on here, and, again, the listener is free to interpret each mood and passage. It is a class piece of music.
Tarmac Row is the shortest track here beginning with more applause. There are screams, there is a crash, there is chaos in a frenetic couple of minutes. After this, we get the penultimate track, Burning Off which is like Tarmac Row, but more playful, not as disastrous, as it were. The vocals are fun, and the bass guitar especially is urgent underneath the parping sax and pad percussion.
We close with them, thar whales. At just over eight minutes, it is the longest piece of music on the album. If you are, like me, a fan of the electric bass guitar being played as a lead instrument by a virtuoso, then this track is the one for you. The playing is simply staggering, and the trancelike state of the music draws you into the band’s world. Listen to it below.
The more I listen to Beat Love Oracle, the more I like them. Yes, the music, and they, are clearly eccentric, but the musicianship is of the highest order, and there is a noble purpose here. This is, I think, a more rounded album than Turning the Table, and it comes very highly recommended.
Review by
Jose Zegarra Holder, Romantic Warriors
“There is no other band on the planet that achieves such brilliance, freshness and instrumental complexity and still manages to put a smile on your face. What else?” (Mark T., Third Millennium)
“I’m not going to talk about structured chaos because that would be a nonsense… What I am going to say is that those from Nuyts have found the molecule capable of fusing solemnity with joy without anything exploding… besides your head. They have done it again. They remain unleashed. Of partying without nonsense and still of sweet. Pop that cork and let the healthy fumes of your “dangerous liquids” make your life a little better. How posh!” (Carlos Torrecilla, Kiss that Prog)
“Their music is a meticulously composed labyrinth, threading through improvisational jazz, chamber precision, and the spirit of Frank Zappa. With each release, Beat Love Oracle reinforces their reputation for fusing genres into a signature sound that resists easy categorization, earning them a spot among the avant-garde and experimental circles.
“Dangerous Liquids,” their latest album, is a tapestry of controlled chaos. It’s an album that speaks in a myriad of musical dialects, from the improvisational fluency of jazz to the structural complexity of contemporary classical music, all underpinned by an electronic heartbeat that adds a modern sheen to the entire endeavor… …The record’s production embraces clarity, allowing each instrument to converse and clash in equal measure… …In “Dangerous Liquids,” Beat Love Oracle continues to chart their own course, unbound by genre constraints, offering an album that is as intellectually stimulating as it is viscerally engaging. With nods to their influences yet an eye on the horizon, the band proves once again that they are more than a sum of their parts — they are the pulse of contemporary fusion, relentless in their pursuit of the unexplored.”
Review by
Bandcamp - Peter Thelen
Just like Hardscore before them (composer, marimba and synthesist Frank Nuyts and sax player and synthesist Frank DeBruyne’s previous group), Beat Love Oracle is a box of wild surprises amazing the listener at every turn, and this, their third album in four years is probably their best effort to date. One might call their music jazz, and in fact that would be fairly close to correct, though what informs these compositions and
improvisations beyond the jazz idiom is what makes what they do so unique. For example the closing track on the CD version “Two whales crashing a beach party for 2 electric basses” is at once curious and dreamy, full of interesting electronics, and really quite beyond jazz. Of course the group’s regular bassist Stijn Deldaele is featured prominently along with guest bassist Joshua Dellaert, with the electronics courtesy of another guest player Jeff Nuyttens. On most of the eight track (or six if one buys it on vinyl) the core quartet which includes Nuyts, Debruyne, Deldaele and drummer / percussionist Ronald Dhaene pull it off with a sound that follows jazz much more closely, probably due to the prominence of the mallets and saxes, though it’s still hardly like anything one has heard before, with outbirsts of spoken word, odd sounds and vocalizations, though the grooves these guys turn up in are positively spectacular, sometimes jumping around between odd rhythms and irregular changes.
The complexity of the compositions and arrangements on a track like “Shaky Balance (on a solid ground)” could only be Zappa inspired, though others like “Barefoot on Thin Ice” wander through more gentle territories, with beautiful melodies guiding the listener along its path. The oddly titled “Sticky Stomp (all the crack of dawn)” and the opening title track are delightful romps through the concept machine, the former sounding almost like an improvisation in parts, while the latter is based on a burning groove set up on drums, bass and saxes, then punctuated nicely by the marimba. Dangerous Liquids certainly has all the ingredients to make it a wild and unique adventure through some vaguely unfamiliar musical landscapes.
La manera en que el saxo y la percusión tonal van compartiendo espacios en el delineamiento del desarrollo temático es sobrehumanamente meticulosa, todo ello mientras la batería usa una garra comedida para asegurarse de que la ilación de motivos intrincados cuenta con los cimientos más seguros. ‘Barefoot On Thin Ice’ comienza con unas misteriosas florituras de bajo, abriendo la puerta al arribo de un cuerpo central muy parsimonioso donde lo contemplativo gobierna la expresividad con la que ha de manifestarse el centro temático. Es como si una idea perdida del maestro RYPDAL hubiese sido retomada por los WEATHER REPORT de 1973 para dotarla de una exuberancia envolvente y seductora. ‘SOSpresso’ sirve para que la banda regrese a su faceta más extrovertida, añadiendo algunos grooves que usualmente se asocian al Latin-jazz y a la faceta funky-experimental de HERBIE HANCOCK, además de algunas notas de humor por vía de unos diálogos burlones que parecen salir de la nada. ‘Sticky Stomp (All The Crack Of Dawn)’ prosigue por esta senda de sofisticada soltura y lo hace tendiendo puentes con las espiritualidad fulgurosa que signó a la pieza homónima. La batería y el saxofón exhiben sus respectivos recursos de energía mientras el bajo crea un dinamismo cuasi-autónomo dentro del índice temático; por supuesto, también hay momentos de lucimiento para la marimba.
Review by
AUtopoietican, Les Saluda César INCA
HOLA, AMIGOS DE AUTOPOIETICAN, LES SALUDA CÉSAR INCA
El 3 de noviembre del año 2023 – hace un tiempo, es verdad – se publicó el que hasta ahora es el último disco del excelente ensamble avant-jazz-progresivo belga BEAT LOVE ORACLE: se titula “Dangerous Liquids” y el sello encargado de la publicación (tanto en CD como en vinilo) es áMARXE, afincado en España. La alineación conformada por Frank Nuyts [marimba, sintetizador y voz], Frank DeBruyne [saxofones, sintetizador y voz], Stijn Deldaele [bajo y voz] y Ronald Dhaene [batería y multipad] vuelve a lucir solventemente sus galones de excelencia creativa tras haber llamado la atención del público amante de la vanguardia con “Turning The Table”, su trabajo del 2022. Para el último tema del disco que ahora nos ocupa colaboran Joshua Dellaert (bajo) y Jeff Nuyttens (soundscapes electrónicos). Nuyts es el autor de casi todos los temas aquí contenidos, exceptuando uno de la autoría de DeBruyne y otro donde Nuyts se asoció creativamente con Nuyttens. De hecho, este último se encargó de la ingeniería de sonido en las sesiones de grabación de Dangerous Liquids, además de la producción y la masterización. Bueno, repasemos ahora los detalles de este disco.
El álbum comienza con la pieza homónima, la cual dura 6 ¾ minutos. La batería da inicio a la señorial arquitectura de ‘Dangerous Liquids’ con su bien definido swing, el cual va acrecentando fluidamente sus dosis de sofisticación y nervio mientras el resto de instrumentos va asentando su bloque interactivo. La estrecha hermandad de bajo y percusión tonal funciona muy bien a la hora de reforzar el groove en curso mientras las líneas de saxofón guían el camino para la continua vitalidad colectiva. También hay algunos ornamentos sintetizados ocasionales que aportan un muy calculado elemento dadaísta al asunto. Gran inicio del álbum, y a continuación llega el turno de ‘Shaky Balance (On A Solid Ground)’, pieza que dura poco menos de 7 ¾ minutos y que también encarna las miras de excelencia creativa de BEAT LOVE ORACLE. Lo que tenemos aquí es un equilibrio bien definido de refinamiento melódico, atmósferas empíreas y arrebatos surrealistas que nos remiten a una majestuosa cruza entre el FRANK ZAPPA de 1972-75, LED BIB y JAGA JAZZIST.
‘Tarmac Row’ recibe los ecos de sofisticada agilidad de las dos piezas anteriores y recurre a un regreso a los ornamentos traviesos y los meandros surrealistas para gestar una vivacidad juguetona en medio del arquitectónico jaleo. Se incluye ruidos de gritos femeninos, portazos y tal vez algún balazo. Siempre viene bien algo de humor negro para reforzar el potencial de distinguida extravagancia que subyace a ciertas áreas del discurso avant-jazzero. Cuando llega el turno de ‘Burning Off’, la banda se dispone a hacer una reconstrucción Zappiana del viejo jazz de las big bands mientras preserva los recursos humorísticos con la emisión de anuncios urgentes de parte de un alucinado maestro de ceremonias. El saxofón se empodera de su espacio en el núcleo central del esquema temático diseñado para la ocasión. El álbum se cierra con la pieza que lleva el peculiar nombre de ‘Two Whales Crashing A Beach Party For 2 Electric Basses’, siendo la más larga del mismo con sus 8 minutos y pico de duración. A pesar de todo, el título es bastante acertado, pues se trata de un dueto de bajos (ya dijimos más arriba que Joshua Dellaert colabora al bajo en este ensamble que ya cuenta con un bajista) que se deja arropar por tenues efectos cósmicos de sintetizador en ciertos pasajes estratégicos. La serie de ejercicios armónicos que se van hilando opera con una tersura inmaculada mientras crea escenarios crepusculares donde lo reposado y lo crepuscular se dan la mano. Sólo en una ocasión cercana al quinto minuto y medio es que las cosas se tornan un poco más tensas, pero no se trata de algo tenebroso, sino más bien exultante, unos pasajes efímeros de esplendor en medio de la predominante reflexividad. Aunque llega un poco tarde esta reseña, que conste que somos totalmente sinceros al recomendar a “Dangerous Liquids” como un ítem infaltable en cualquier buena fonoteca de jazz y rock vanguardistas. Este disco de BEAT LOVE ORACLE es una joya destacada dentro de la producción musical europea del año 2023… Y posiblemente, la obra cumbre del grupo hasta la fecha.
Muestras de “Dangerous Liquids”. –Dangerous Liquids:
https://amarxe.bandcamp.com/track/dangerous-liquids
Shaky Balance (On A Solid Ground):
https://amarxe.bandcamp.com/track/shaky-balance-on-a-solid-ground
Sticky Stomp (All The Crack Of Dawn):
https://amarxe.bandcamp.com/track/sticky-stomp-all-the-crack-of-dawn
