The Stumbling Block

The Stumbling Block is Zukanican’s second album and third release on Pickled Egg Records. Recorded in 2007-8 at The Kif in Liverpool the 8 track album mirrors the band’s live performances perhaps more than their other releases. Zukanican were formed in Liverpool in 2003 and The Stumbling Block follows on the back of the E 5number EP and Horse Republic album, also on Pickled Egg Records. Their sound has been likened to an unholy hardcore collision between Can, ESG, Cluster, The Soft Machine and Art Ensemble of Chicago, with gigs building to an audience/group symbiotic groove crescendo. The band also shares musical membership with Loka (Ninja Tune) and Melodie Du Kronk (The Great Pop Supplement). Among the many influences declared by the last generation of rock musicians, no one is quoted as preposterously as Sun Ra, who inherited a record that was Stockhausen's own in the 70’s. This preamble is to say that the joyful Zukanican commune is conversely the legitimate daughter of the bandleader from Saturn, with their rhythmic exuberance, the tone colours of the woodwind, the spacey and ancestral essence of their music. Add to this a little subterranean Can-school kraut pulse, a tip of jazz-rock with early '70s Miles Davis' harmonies and the enthusiasm of some bantering psyche-heads, and you'll get a hint of the lifeblood flowing through the grooves of Horse Republic, excellent follow-up to E 5Number.