ICE

Rotcod Zzaj, Improvijazzation Nation –
Moodfood - ICE: If that group name had come from any other than the "Soulfood" label, I doubt it would have gotten reviewed for a while. Since we've reviewed quite a bit of stuff from "Soulfood", though, I suspected this would be great... & my ears certainly weren't disappointed. The opener, "Kaif Kun", reminds me (somehow) of early "Sting", probably from the rhythmic persuasions & vocal echo effects. DJ Free & Peter Schimke have joined forces to astound your ears with up-to-date & non-cliché beats that often approach somethin' you might call "World Jazz". It's danceable as well, & has flawless execution of rhythm. Some very pleasing synthesizer works... my favorite cut is "Martini House", which takes my ears way back to bands like Spyro Gyra, & keyboardists like Joe Zawinul (Weather Report). This is an excellent album through & through, with something for every listener's ears. I give it a MOST HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

Chris Spector, Midwest Record Recap –
The Soulfood gang let’s another side show as they unleash their chill side with the help of some of the leading lights o the genre. As with their other personality, they know how to make the sound and the attitude right where it should be. A tasty chill dance outing that offers new aural delights from one of the most reliable underground crews out there.

Rod Smith, City Pages –
Beat-driven electronics and live instrumentation, like Ewoks and Freemansons, belong to intrinsically different domains. Attempts at interbreeding between the realms often generate grotesque offspring, more lopsided than a partially fallen soufflé and considerably less satisfying. Luckily, MOODFOOD principals DJ Free and Peter Schimke made sure all their musical chromosomes were properly aligned before hauling in a posse of luminaries, local and otherwise, to put the glisten on their first non-soundtrack collaboration. Even as a simple augmented duo, the programming whiz and keyboardist-around-town slide across genre boundaries with Olympic-caliber grace, mixing “Martini House” potentially unwieldy elements – shuffly house-music tectonics, serious jazz piano, and high-disco string pyrotechnics – as though they were water. The funky, hand drum enhanced ballad “Butterflies” finds them aided by the likes of Dave Matthews woodwind champ Richard Hardy, bassist Billy Peterson, and breathy chill-compilation veteran Julia Messenger in a quietly spectacular display of down-tempo seductiveness. Granted, the album doesn’t exactly break new, uh, un frozen water; Masters at Work first skated the same terrain nearly 10 years ago, while the similarly far-reaching efforts of Cold Cut and S-Express began in the ‘80s. But as an act of global consolidation, Ice’s cup runneth over very nicely indeed.