The Obradovi Tixier Duo is the intriguing partnership of Lada Obradovi, a Croatian jazz drummer, and David Tixier, a French pianist. Together, they swept the board with a host of first prize and best band awards at last year's summer festivals, including the RZZo Focal prize at Jazz Vienne and a soloist prize for Lada at the 2019 La Dfense Jazz Festival.The duo's outstanding musicality and super-contemporary and ever-so-stylish sound, is as compelling as it is exciting.
The Boiling Stories of a Smoking Kettle is the duo's first UK release. Its quirky opener Dear You sets the scene for their striking blend of acoustic and electronic sounds. Tixier simultaneously plays acoustic piano and synths, while Obradovi combines drums with glockenspiel, hapi drum and kalimba, while effects, samples and voice are used to wondrous effect. Both rhythmic and free, their original compositions are at once delicate and insistent, dreamy and forceful yet always surprising. Tixier's sophisticated harmonies and lyrical drama interweave with Lada's polyrhythms, his serial shamanic piano phrases muffled by digital blankets.
