new cool collective: yunikōn
Francisco Espregueira
With a maginficent career spanning for over 30 years, the Amsterdam based New Cool Collective has an impressive discography including an astonishingly diverse list of collaborations ranging from Matt Bianco and Tony Allen to Orchestra Baobab’s saxman Thierno Koité. The band has become an extremely tight unit, totally at ease playing a mix of jazz, latin, afrobeat and boogaloo. In the spring of 2021 the band left its hometown of Amsterdam to record in Rotterdam. Allowing the band the soak in new energy and influences ultimately resulting in a new record: YUNIKōN, which just dropped via Dox Records.
Blending sound machines with organic instrumentation, New Cool Collective deliver an expansive sound, that has cinematic properties. It’s hard to listen to these without imagining a variety of possibilities. And here lies the magic of this album (and the band’s discography). They allow most tracks to evolve until reaching their final form during the last moments of the mixing process, which provides imagination and colour to these 10 tracks. Title song, “Yunikōn”, symbolises the album for the band members: “elusive and kaleidoscopic” just like the mythological creature from which the album title borrows its name. With YUNIKōN New Cool Collective extends its discography with another ambitious album. Available on vinyl.
Benjamin Herman – Saxophones, Bass Flute
David Rockefeller – Trumpet, Trombone
Rory Ronde – Guitars
Willem Friede – Keyboard Instruments
Leslie López – Electric Bass
Joost Kroon – Drums
Jos de Haas – Percussion
Frank van Dok – Congas