On June 11th, independent groove label Sdban Records will release Utopic Cities: Progressive Jazz in Belgium 1968-1979 featuring twelve essential compositions from a highly creative period in Belgian jazz. The release follows Sdban’s critically acclaimed Let’s Get Swinging: Modern Jazz in Belgium 1950-1970, released back in 2017.

Utopic Cities is an eclectic selection of forward-thinking jazz from the Belgian underground, including the left-field fusion of Marc Moulin’s Placebo, Koen De Bruyne and Solis Lacus; the intense post-bop of Jacques Pelzer and Lou MacConnell; the cutting edge soul jazz of Philip Catherine and Open Sky Unit or the otherworldly avant-garde of Babs Robert and the Brussels Art Quintet. Recorded in the aftermath of the revolutionary year 1968, this music is the fruit of a highly creative momentum in Belgian jazz history that produced a unique sound which distinguishes itself from its American source of inspiration by an indefinable characteristic that can be hardly better described than ‘Belgian’.

Tracklist:
A1 Placebo – S.U.S.
A2 Solis Lacus– Utopic Cities
A3 Open Sky Unit– Open Sky
A4 Brussels Art Quintet– Vas-y Voir
B1 Koen De Bruyne– Pathetic Dreams
B2 Raphaël– Archangelo
C1 Philip Catherine– Memphis Talk
C2 Jacques & Micheline Pelzer Quartet– Face Reality
C3 The Kenny Clarke-Francy Boland Big Band– Sakara
D1 Marc Moulin– Tohubohu pt. I
D2 Babs Robert– Pro Forma I
D3 Lou MacConnell– Naima