Since his emergence in the 1980s as the driving creative force behind UK big band Loose Tubes, Django Bates has been cheerfully subverting expectations, slaughtering scared cows and generally making a euphonious nuisance of himself, but he’s really gone and done it this time.
Sgt Pepper is more than just a collection of songs, it's a cultural icon, a unique album whose character is found as much in its theatricality and its innovative production as in its songs. But this salute – with the Frankfurt Radio Big Band and poppy Danish trio Eggs Laid by Tigers – is neither an homage nor a re-imaginining, but rather a redecoration, wrapping a much-loved repertoire in Bates' Hermeto Pascoal- and Gil Evans-inspired embrace.
Weird, wacky and occasionally wonderful.
