Beat Love Oracle released Turning the Table at the back end of 2022, and I reviewed it last year, stating in my headline that it was “ever so slightly barking, but interesting fare”. The link to that review is below. Now, November 2023 saw the release of Dangerous Liquids, once more on the ÁMARXE label, which is responsible for some fascinating music, for sure.

The core band is Frank Nuyts on marimba, synth, and vocals (he writes the bulk of the material); Frank Debruyne on sax, synths, and vocals; Stijn Deldaele on bass & vocals; and Ronald Dhaene on drums and multipad. Guests on this are Joshua Dellaert who plays bass on “Two Whales Crashing a Beach Party for 2 electric basses” (what a title for a piece of music) and Jeff Nuyttens who creates electronic soundscapes on the same piece.

So, Belgian fusion which I recommended last year, but warned that a degree of patience was required. Have I changed my view at all?

There are eight tracks here. We start off with the title track, and immediately you are struck by the feelgood vibe, somewhat belying the title, although I suppose that my beloved real ale is classed as such by the medical chappies, and I take no notice of that whatsoever. The sax on this is beguiling and the bass grooves equally enticing. It is a great start to proceedings, a track which belongs firmly in bars across the civilised world. You will, I think, particularly enjoy the percussion noises created.

Shaky Balance (on a solid ground) follows. It is the second longest track here at 7:39. The start reminds me of the wonderful thematic music to The Pink Panther (films and cartoon) and there is here more than a bit of the element of playfulness you got with those classics, alongside some very interesting synth noises and effects. Whilst it is not exactly music to “relax” to (certainly not when you listen to the dystopian voices), it certainly is something I recommend being accompanied by a glass of single malt at home on a dark, cold, winter’s night to bring a wee bit of warmth to life. That sax and bass interplay is simply divine.

Barefoot on Thin Ice, as opposed to the Skating Away beloved of classic Tull fans, fascinates me, because when you close your eyes and concentrate on the music, at first it sounds like some form of classic noodling, but in reality after repeated listens, you see the subject gingerly tip toeing across the frozen wasteland, as if every step could be his last. The percussion is complex and deeply satisfying in its cleverness.

SOSpresso is a great title, a wonderful play on product words. The start recalls a person in crisis, a worker in desperate need of that caffeine hit to enable one to keep going, with the sax and drums combining to bring a sense of chaos. The “what else” sequence brings said hit, with the bass going mental in its intensity before the inevitable comedown. I have no doubt whatsoever that others will have a completely different take on this to me, but such is the joy of this form of musical expression.

Next up is Sticky Stomp (all the crack of dawn). A search for “sticky stomp” brings with it a cartoon series about a family of bumble bees, The Hive. Now, whether this was the intent, I know not, but there is certainly an industriousness to this piece which reminds one of the intensity of worker bees going about their business in the sticky hive, stomping across, feeding the Queen’s demand for nutrition for the next hive generation, the percussion and bass again providing an intensity to the sax’s lead musings, and there are some delightful synth chords on this track creating a thoughtful overlay. The applause, voices, and police sirens then take one to what I believe to be the true intent, that of a slumbering city within which there is a distinct sub-culture of nightlife, and you are transported to, say, New York and classic films such as Taxi Driver. There is, therefore, an awful lot going on here, and, again, the listener is free to interpret each mood and passage. It is a class piece of music.

Tarmac Row is the shortest track here beginning with more applause. There are screams, there is a crash, there is chaos in a frenetic couple of minutes. After this, we get the penultimate track, Burning Off which is like Tarmac Row, but more playful, not as disastrous, as it were. The vocals are fun, and the bass guitar especially is urgent underneath the parping sax and pad percussion.

We close with them, thar whales. At just over eight minutes, it is the longest piece of music on the album. If you are, like me, a fan of the electric bass guitar being played as a lead instrument by a virtuoso, then this track is the one for you. The playing is simply staggering, and the trancelike state of the music draws you into the band’s world. Listen to it below.

The more I listen to Beat Love Oracle, the more I like them. Yes, the music, and they, are clearly eccentric, but the musicianship is of the highest order, and there is a noble purpose here. This is, I think, a more rounded album than Turning the Table, and it comes very highly recommended.