Review: Varv - Transit (Off Record)

Boardering on an instrumental avant-garde, Stones Throw/James Pants/Madlib, SMD, Thundercat, Billy Cobham, prog rock jazz experimental concept album - what pigeon hole fit this abstract? All I know is the Varv's sophmore album is in 'Transit' and it's a monster on its way! 

This is already the Italian duo's best album to date, following thier debut 'Lowlands', as its  described as "shape-shifting dialogue between synthetic electronic pulses and improvisation, suspended in a liminal space of endless reinvention and borderless sonic exploration" but it's more out-there than Wout van Aert in space.

Perhaps only a Belgian label called Off Record could release this six track album project of Andrea Cappi (keys/synths) and Francesco Mascolo (drums) as it's weaves from one musical pavé section to another, often via space synth airwaves.

ELP types will find easy access to the album via 'Wormhole' whilst they say, "which swallows the listener whole — a disorienting vortex stripped of reference points, a chaotic pull into the unstable matter of sound itself."  It's certainly a head to head battle that's a mad dead heat finish.

But that's not the start of this half-dozen break-a-way tracks, opening with 'Bright' that grows from synth beats to incorporate a bit a firework whilst 'Place To Digress' adds a piano to the combo a la Steve Reich's schema to Nonclassical/InFiné diversion.

All these tracks and 70s cop theme 'Vice', heavy on funk and synths, are 6 plus minutes long in the mini-opus parading which makes me wonder why 'Arkose' and the closing track, 'Drifter's Deal' are shorter?   It makes it all the more odd when 'Arkose' has all the elements of another 'Wormhole' - any chance of an extended 12" mix?

This is the jazz fusion version of Death From Above 1979 and Suicide that you never knew you needed and after the madness of Record Store Day, I hope you've saved a few pennies fot the one from the back of the van (Ed. one for Ford Transit fans).

BUY LINK / PRE-ORDER: Music | Off - record label

Artist:  Varv 

Title: Transit

Release date: 24th April, 2026

Label: Off Record

Catalog Number: OUI072

Format:  CD/ Digital