Mario Rom's Interzone - Everything Is Permitted

The album’s title says it all. Mario Rom’s Interzone plays jazz by the motto „everything is permitted“ and has been enthralling critics and audiences since more than two years with this concept. For a long time now, this eloquent trio’s renown has far outreached the border of its homeland, Austria. But the juvenile esprit of the trio doesn’t only put European audiences into euphoria. Also in Mexico, China, Israel, Morocco and in the motherland of jazz, the United States, Interzone’s stage presence was highly acclaimed. In an astounding way, the young musicians now succeeded at exuding this live-intensity on a record as well.

The pieces of Everything Is Permitted are virtually bursting with verve and spirit. With only trumpet, double bass and drums, Interzone raises a musical storm, in which reminiscences of jazz history, blues and bop licks, rock and funk attitude, and virtuosity and humor are whirled together. Mario Rom’s agile trumpet flirts, allures and blares, at times even seems to duel with itself. Thereby Rom changes color like a chameleon; shines bright and clear, can sound smooth and warm in the next piece, and shortly after surprises with raspy rough timbre. The bandleader is spurred by Herbert Pirker’s distinctive, sometimes straightforward, sometimes absurdly swirling beats. While developing almost rocky force in fast pieces, Pirker lowers the dynamics to quiet brush strokes or light clatter in ballads. He is always impressed by a resolute will to groove. Lukas Kranzelbinder’s grave double bass confidently holds together the twists and turns of his two partners. Like that, Interzone succeeds at creating a delightful, inspiringly entertaining balance between seriousness and wit.

Together with the album Everything Is Permitted, Interzone is releasing a four-part online video series. It conveys the general concept of the band, as well as the mind and sentiment of the musicians. This elaborate short film series is a singular venture, at least in the central-European jazz scene. Its individual parts are geared to the principle of TV series and tell a continuous story throughout the episodes. Still they are “merely” music videos with the pieces of the new album; there are no dialogs. The trio put a remarkable effort into the realization of the individual clips, which are between 6 and 15 minutes long. Filming locations included Mexico City, Texas, New Orleans, Louisiana, Morocco, Qatar and lastly also Germany and Austria. In the continuous plot the three main characters follow the trace of the Black Centipede all across Mexico, Texas and Louisiana, to unravel the mystery of the “Black Centipede Powder”. The surreal road trip brings them to various different places and characters and all the way to the limits of their perception. When they finally arrive at their destination, they face the most difficult decision of their lives.

The first two episodes are online now and can be seen on www.everythingispermitted.at and on the Facebook page of Mario Rom’s Interzone.