Artist Info

Artist Info

Two years after the highly acclaimed first album ‘Cucumber Lodge’, briskey returns with ‘Scarlett Road-house’. In the same very briskey style, but the music goes a step further, exploring new sounds and structures. Groovy beats, wild brass, bittersweet jazzy vocals, haunting vibraphones, pushing double bass lines and the combination of sampling and accoustic instruments remain. But ‘Scarlett Road-house’ is more dynamic, up-tempo, musically richer, and has a more profoundly cinematical feel evocating the charming but desolate moods of old film noir. Add some joyful big band samples from the 30’s and 40’s, contemporary weird electro-sounds, catchy live improvisations and stunning digital cut-ups, and you’ll get an imaginative, sensual, sometimes even naive and above all seducing cocktail. ‘Scarlett Road-house’ is the new chapter in the briskey saga: a wicked slice of nu-jazz funkiness with a can’t-stand-still vibe. Welcome to the brisk sound of briskey, again.
Briskey History

Music has always been the key-element in briskey’s life. Throughout the years GERT KEUNEN listened to and absorbed many different kinds of music and worked professionaly as a newspaper journalist, record company manager and concert promoter. He wrote reference books about pop, rock and dance music and even teaches music history and music business at the Rock Academy in Holland. A man with a story. A musician, briskey made this nice move from acoustic (flute), through electric (guitar) to electronic instruments (sampling and sequencing). In the mid nineties he played in quite a few avant-jazz bands that brought him to major venues in Belgium. As a DJ he took part in Vinyl Requiem, a London-based project by turntable-artist Philip Jeck, and performed in Ghent, London and Hamburg. And recently, as a sample-artist and composor he set up an astonishing Pink Floyd project with the contemporary classical Hermes Ensemble. He arranged old psychedelic tracks of the group, wrote new compositions and played samples in the classical environment of the Klara Festival in Brussels.
Since 1996 composing music is his main passion. Seeing himself more as a musical director, he lets a wide range of influences converge into his own musical ideas. After some years of exploring the boundaries of drum ‘n’ jazz and a remix he made of Groove Armada’s ‘I See You Baby’, three maxi’s established briskey’s name. They were internationally well received and got played by key-DJ’s all over the world, including Rush Dewberry and Gilles Peterson.
Late 2003 the first full album ‘Cucumber Lodge’ was released, demonstrating the rich flavours of briskey. The reactions and the media coverage were overwhelming. More than 30 interviews and even more reviews followed. Two months after the release, briskey was nominated for the Belgian Zamu Music Awards in the category ‘dance’. Even Belgian national television used ‘Cucumber Lodge’ as a backing track for several programs. Tracks of briskey have been licensed to compilations in Holland, Germany, France, Portugal, Greece, Italy and even Taiwan.
Since the release of the album, a ‘second’ briskey was born: the live-band. Together with professional musicians like Bart Maris (trumpet), Nicolas Roseeuw (soprano, tenor and bass saxophones), Isolde Lasoen (drums and vibes), Charles Nagtzaam (double bass, originally played by Kristof Roseeuw) and Dorona Alberti (voice), briskey brings the music live on stage and adds a tough new dimension and vibrating jazz feeling to it. The briskey live band already played successfully in important clubs and festivals in Belgium (like Ancienne Belgique, Vooruit, Blue Note Festival), Holland (North Sea Jazz) and Italy (Arezzo Wave, RomaEuropa Festival).
A nice evolution and new experiences, reflected in the brand new album. ‘Scarlett Road-house’ contains 11 stunning tracks, also including an alternative version of the hotly topped 12" pretaster ’Kosmo & Yahoodi’, some song-like tracks and a guest appearance by famous Belgian actor Vic De Wachter (reading a text consisting of 39 titles of movies in which Humphrey Bogart played). The tracks were initially created and digitally built by briskey himself, then added with live recordings and improvizations from the briskey live band and afterwards edited and integrated into a colourful sound collage. That way briskey brings together mixed styles and emotions and builds bridges between electronic sounds and real live jazz, old and new. Carefully mixed without losing the surprisingly brisk and organic live feeling, and with a direct impact on your dancing pleasure.
Let briskey move and seduce you.
Briskey Members

Nicolas ROSEEUW soprano-, tenor- and bass-sax
Isolde Lasoen drums and vibes
Dorona ALBERTI vocals
Bart MARIS trumpet and flugelhorn
CHARLES NAGTZAAM double bass
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