Shatter Imagery
In sports it’s called a “career year,” a season where opportunity and effort combine for extraordinary success. For Wurk, the three-year-old jam-jazz-funk-fusion band, 2019 is shaping up to be that kind of year.
After being named “Breakthrough Artist of the Year” at the 2018 Madison Area Music Awards, the septet snagged five different honors at this year’s awards. The accolades include “Best Alternative Song” for “Ambulance;” “Best Pop/R&B Song” for “Dealin’ With the Devil;” “Synth Artist of the Year” for band member Ryley Buchanan; “Rock Album of the Year” for The Devil’s Wurk; and the coveted “Artist of the Year” award.
On Nov. 15, Wurk will cap its year with the release of Animation, the band’s first full-length album, at a release party at High Noon Saloon. The next night, the band will host a release party at the Up and Under Pub on Milwaukee’s east side.
“We brand ourselves as a funk-fusion group that is interested in a lot of genres,” says sax player Daniel Haschke, the only one of the seven musicians not from Mount Horeb. “We want to keep people dancing, but we also want to keep their musical interests alive. We’re trying to keep each turn in the music unexpected, maybe a little gripping.”
In addition to Haschke, the band also includes Frank Laufenberg (guitar/vocals), Max Morkri (drums), Miles Morkri (keyboards/vocals), Casey Seymour (bass), Ryley Buchanan (synthesizer/organ), and Carl Hipenbecker (trumpet). All seven members pooled their talents in the writing and producing duties on the new self-released album recorded at Audio for the Arts.
“The title Animation is a survey of our style and the sounds and feelings we offer as a band,” Haschke says. “This is actually our fourth album, but at nine cuts and an hour’s worth of music, it’s our first full-length effort.
“Animation refers to breathing life and movement into the music,” Haschke adds. “The lyrical content tends to focus on the celebration and struggles of life.”
The album’s cuts have a retro jazz-fusion feel, striking a balance between what Haschke describes as “the space between complexity and groove.” The horns provide bright voices over an incessant, often complex rhythm track, with Buchanan’s synthesizer occasionally taking off in unusual directions. Think early Blood, Sweat and Tears, but with a slightly trippy edge.
On “Cathedral,” the band takes a different tone, beginning with solo piano that suddenly erupts into a rhythmic jazz opus threaded with Laufenberg’s striking, colorful guitar passages. “Funk Day” lives up to its name, riding a distinctly insistent groove under some accomplished jazz overtones.
It’s easy to see why “Dialogue,” the album’s final cut, was chosen as the band’s first single. Max Morkri’s idiosyncratic drums set a tone carried by evolving horns in a musical narrative punctuated by minor key passages. Haschke’s sax solo walks the listener through temperate sections to a cascading blend of voices and instruments that eventually fades to a musically unresolved silence.
Nice work, Wurk.
