Castle in the Air

This is the debut album for the Buzz Brothers Band. Although Marnix and Berthil Busstra have played together over the years, they have not recorded together until now.

As the title suggests, the overall feeling of this album is light, airy and dreamlike. All of the compositions are originals by Marnix Busstra. He is a lyrical writer,writing music that is easy on the ears. Although the first track starts off reminiscent of something by The Doors, it settles into a lighter mood. “Pearl diver” begins with the melody played by Gevorg Vardanian on the duduk, an Armenian wind instrument with a sound quality resembling the clarinet. This track has a very gentle feel with a lyrical piano solo by Berthil Busstra. “Frog country” features some fastdriving drumwork by Chris Strik with the melody by the keyboards. “Grand-ma and the wolf” is a fun track which starts off quietly with Chris Strik on drums with a tango beat and builds with Marnix Bustra’s guitar solo. The track entitled “Buzz Battle” sounds more like a game of tag than a battle….with the brothers taking turns on solos. 

This offering is a very cohesive one. There are a lot of interesting solos and good work by Rene Dissel on bass and Chris Strik on drums. Obviously, the group had a lot of fun recording this because there is a lot of “feel good” music on these tracks.

“The Buzz Bros Band is, along side Second Vision and the Marnix Busstra 4-tet my third, own band… Berthil and I used to play a lot together, always busy with our sort of music; Miles, Hancock, Scofield, etcetera. Still, at a a certain point, we grew apart and proceeded to follow our own musical paths.”