snobb
Hashima is a quartet from Serbia - land with rich jazz history coming from previous century's 60s,70s and 80s, but becoming a terra incognita for European jazz fans starting from 90s and generally up to nowadays.
In a few words,Hashima is a semi-acoustic band where members with classic/folk/jazz background play music which by its aesthetics is closer to progressive rock than to any other genre.Their debut album "Tideland" contains six precisely executed compositions where almost classic attention to details is successfully mixed with free jazz elements and rock energy. Band's leader and main composer Igor Mišković plays semi-acoustic guitar on a manner one can rarely hear in jazz or rock. There are not many solos or shredding,often guitar sounds almost classical but regular drones build high energy "rockish" atmosphere.
Srđan Mijalković on tenor adds lot of folksy Balkan accents which never dominates though. Almost every composition contains some hotter moments with all instruments going to the limit but very soon returning back under full control. That full control on emotional flow is rare for jazz of any form and comes most probably from post rock of last decades.
The feeling of internal freedom and almost pedantic external control is probably the strongest impression which left after listening to whole album for few times. It builds very specific and quite unique atmosphere which radically differs from everything what Western Balkan jazz,traditionally known by its strong fusion guitarists, is presented before.
Natural question is how Hashima sounds live on gigs - recorded videos demonstrates more freedom and not so strictly controlled sound what adds more blood and adventure what is obviously for good.