Ottla
Bert Dockx guitar, Frans Van Isacker altsax, Thomas Jillings tenorsax / clarinet, Nicolas Rombouts bass, Yannick Dupont drums / elektronics, Louis Evrard drums
After Dans Dans, Flying Horseman and a couple of solo excursions, Ottla is the new outlet for guitarist Bert Dockx. What started with the plan to once again play jazz, led to a remarkable project with its own unique identity: Ottla, named after Franz Kafka’s sister. It was the name the young Bert Dockx gave to a bicycle and to his first band.
Now Ottla is a band once again, not some frivolous exercise, but a vital sextet that took shape after a year of intense rehearsals. This led to the first eponymous album by Ottla, which sounds playful, mysterious, sometimes brittle and sometimes raw and brutal, but always exciting. Eight songs made the cut: six originals and two covers, by Sun Ra and Thelonious Monk respectively. Is it jazz, rock, psychedelia, something in between or something else completely. It’s up for the listener to decide. Or, as Monk himself once said: ‘You’re supposed to know it when you hear it’.
‘Ottla surprises, grooves, moves and has humor. But above all, Ottla creates new music in a very original way’ (Jazzism).
‘Bert Dockx plays as if he’s possessed, but always with the reins firmly in his own hands’ (3voor12).