Lars Kutschke – Brașov Tales
Timezone Records – 2025
https://www.larskutschke.com/
5 tracks; 25 minutes
With Brașov Tales (2025), Lars Kutschke, a premier European blues guitarist and composer, offers an eclectic, genre-blurring exploration of American music rooted in jazz, blues, funk, and rock, but with a polished, modern sensibility. The five track instrumental release follows Kutschke’s 2022 solo LP release While We’re Here.
Across the album, Kutschke weaves jazz-inspired improvisation and ambient textures with danceable, high groove energy, with parallels to funk and soul acts like Stevie Wonder and the Meters. Guitar work shifts from fluidly tender, melodic introspection to fiery blues-rock displays of virtuosity.
The album balances spacious, atmospheric passages with explosive bursts of rhythm and melody. Instrumentation is layered and polished, with contributions from saxophone, bass, keys, and rums, giving the music a rich, tapestry-like feel – sometimes hypnotic and ambient, sometimes primal and ecstatic.
“Ada In an Uber” opens the album with soft ambient tones and jazzy notes, with electronic instruments and drums. Guitar improvisations and flighty, spacious notes follow and subtle blues notes. The track has an almost yacht-rock like polish, like Steely Dan. The tune is a sonic journey – it feels like going out to the desert and finding a part of yourself you hadn’t yet discovered. Melodic, rolling keys are played by Till Sahm, stretching out the song on a musical tapestry, like a more jazzlike “Jessica” by the Allman Brothers.
One of the best tracks on the EP, “King City”, is a polished musical tapestry dipping into jazz and blues. Jarring, retro sounds open up into a high tempo groove, like an upbeat Stevie Wonder song. The band jams out, and Tom Götze provides a gnarly bass groove while Michal Skulski offers sharp, howling tenor saxophone. The dance number employs fervent, enraptured rhythm – wild and swinging, but controlled music.
The closing track, “Nicu”, drifts towards a quieter, calmer power. Gentle, tender guitar picking from Kutschke kicks it off, and Till Sahm delivers a funky, soulful piano line, with pleasant resonance. It is delicate and expressive, like a haiku of sound.
“Hardly Ever” employs a funky bass intro, an infectious groove that infects the entire song with hypnotic rhythm. The track evokes the Red Hot Chilli Peppers at their funkiest and The Meters, with an off-beat cohesion and an unrelenting energy. The track also slides into spacious, airy territory, meandering like a windy country road.
Bluesy guitar opens up “Green Hill View”, a song with soft, intimate chord progressions and tender guitar playing by Kutschke that build to faster and tenser moments of heavier rock and blues. A fundamental contrast develops as Kutschke wields a fireworks display of guitar prowess.
One can only imagine the emotional resonance these songs might achieve with lyrics to match their depth. Even without them, Kutschke and his studio band shine as vital, energetic performers, captured live in a single day’s session. Brașov Tales offers an eclectic approach to blues, jazz, rock, and funk both polished and energetic.
