About

Ziggy Zeitgeist has become a staple of the Australian Music scene. Touring and recording with Melbourne Nu-Soul/ future-jazz collective, ‘30/70’ has enabled Zeitgeist to forge new frontiers in improvisation and drum-set application. Zeitgeist has stepped up to the role of bandleader. The vision of this project was to create a live band experience that is closely aligned with an extended DJ set, heavily influenced by club culture and transformative festivals where people seek a more transcendent experience- a continuous odyssey, sound and groove with the spirit of live improvisation. The main influences for this project include house, broken beat, and a good dose of 70’s jazz-funk in order to create a unique and cosmic pocket.

A funk-filled wake-up call? A club-floor rush to the barricades? Regardless of its anarchic intent, and largely because of its drum-set electro friendly sound, Inspire/Radicalise will have you getting down. A lynchpin of Melbourne jazz collective 30/70 – a group in the vanguard of the young jazz renaissance taking place everywhere from Melbourne to Chicago – the Berlin-based drummer/producer Zeitgeist has again lassoed a clutch of collaborators with groove in their bones and influences including house, disco and 1970s jazz-funk in the arsenal. All of the collaborators improvise within and outside Zeitgeist’s loosely composed templates on 15 tracks titled things like "Living in the Future" and "Lifestyles of the Hip & Crazy", their freewheeling inventions lent warmth by analogue keyboards and wry humour.

An album best played in its entirety, so building potential for trance-induced epiphanies, highlights are tricky to pinpoint, though "Just One Bump", (with Oscar Jerome on freewheeling guitar), is a disco-fied scorcher and the wah-wah tastic "Celebrate Some Time" sets its freak flag high. The struggle between creative instinct and artistic reasoning was Zeitgeist’s starting point, and that tension that fuels what surely is one of the jazz dance albums of the summer. — via Jazz Wise

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Label: Energy Exchange Records
Format: 2 x Vinyl, LP
Released: 2025
Genre: Electronic, Jazz, Funk / Soul
Style: Disco, Acid Jazz, Jazz-Funk, Broken Beat

File under: Modern/Future Jazz
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