'Turn the Dice' by PARRA.DICE

'Turn the Dice' marks the debut full-length from PARRA.DICE - the Dutch nine-piece seeking to tear apart the rulebook and create music on their own terms.

Building nicely off of their inaugural five-track EP, 'Au Revoir Ooievaar' (2023), the PARRA.DICE ensemble adopt an enthusiastic, all-encompassing approach to their music that finds them welcoming any and all influences and subsequently presenting them as a cohesive musical statement.  

And theirs is a sound that translates incredibly from the studio to the stage - increasingly renowned for their voracious live shows, the group have found themselves making waves at shows and festivals including Sipa, Wildeburg, Into the Woods, ADE, Footprints, Jazzahead! and the Bimhuis.  

'Turn the Dice' proves an exceptional representation of the band's mission statement with twelve tracks that, in their own way, openly display their vast array of influences.  The album delivers a vast sonic palette that adeptly makes everything elegantly connect while maintaining the record's unpredictability at the same time.  Plus, vocalist FENNE shines on 'Horizon' sounding comfortably at home alongside the band's broad soundscape.

PARRA.DICE may very well have created an almost abrasive perception of music in the modern era - one that defies genre and categorisation subsequently envisioning a musical landscape whereby boundaries - or "cages" as the band have previously described - don't exist.

Maybe PARRA.DICE are onto something.  We may very well be in the era of "post genre" whereby categorisation simply doesn't matter to people anymore.  Maybe it is limiting from the perspective of an artist who can be made to feel that being boxed into a genre means that you are unable to branch out and present music that is truly reflective of everything you would want it to be?  So PARRA.DICE's defiance and commitment to pursuing their own artistic truth should certainly be applauded.

But, there's a flip-side to that argument.

There always is.

While PARRA.DICE may very well have created music that finds them running away from labels like "jazz", there may be the most basic of all truths within the genre that is being overlooked... It's a truth extolled by its greatest minds and it's the very simple fact that "Jazz is freedom".  Those simplistic words are attributed to the great Thelonious Monk but another, slightly more detailed explanation comes from Duke Ellington who said: "Jazz is the only unhampered, unhindered expression of complete freedom yet produced in this country."

PARRA.DICE are a band chasing freedom in every sense.  It's even in their name.  And while the collective feel their explorations have them escaping categorisation, inadvertently, they may very well have just crafted a record of immeasurable purity that it could only ever be considered jazz. 

Whatever anyone calls it - it's brilliant!