The Stix is the follow-up to Jaga Jazzist's debut album, A Livingroom Hush, which created enough of a fuss to get them picked up by leftfield pioneers Ninja Tune. The ten-piece, who hail from Norway, have been operating as a live entity for some nine years. Main production duties are taken care of by Jorgen Traen (aka Sir Dupermann, aka the man behind the studios in Berlin that Royksopp and Kings of Convenience call home), but Jaga Jazzist are overtly fuelled by a love of live music and improvisation rather than studio tricknology--and it shows. An ardent experimentalism is at play on The Stix which manifests itself via glitchy computer rhythms, playful dissonance and thrillingly spontaneous interchanges between keys, upright bass, vibraphone, tuba, sax, melodica, flute and trombone. This all perhaps smacks of indulgent noodling, but to the band's credit they manage to create the impression of a more "grounded" or coherent type of improv. Making restless, erratic music sound fluid and coherent isn't easy but Jaga Jazzist handle it like young masters. --Paul Sullivan
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