In Buffalo, where live music reigns supreme and countless musical genres - from punk to metal to funk - play anywhere from Pearl Street to the Continental, Lazlo Hollyfeld stands alone.
With roots in Buffalo's diverse musical landscape, the band is able to sift effortlessly through musical boundaries. Hollyfeld has quickly developed a form of music that is more than just sound - the four members have created a palate of creativity in which color and contrast meld together in melodious harmony.
The band hosts an upcoming release party for their upcoming release, titled "Our Universe is Feeding," tonight at Nietzsche's, 248 Allen St. They will be appearing with jazz/fusion pioneers Schleigho.
With its new release, Hollyfeld strings together a collection of 12 tightly knit studio cuts, capturing a gentler side while maintaining a consistency.
Hollyfeld ranges from delicate jazz tempos on piano, to the in-your-face explosive funk of exploratory electronic trance. With every effort, the band seamlessly merges varying genres into one cohesive resonance.
"We strive for simplicity," said keyboardist Scott Molloy. "We spend a lot of time finding ways to simplify things without taking away from them."
Without emphasizing one or two specific members of the band, Hollyfeld prefers to maintain its cohesion as an ensemble, thus creating a sonic consistency. With this, the band can achieve a certain sense of solidity seen rather infrequently in today's popular music.
"The best way I can define our sound is emotional instrumental music with a strong focus on rhythm," Molloy said.
With the definitive and rhythmically near-perfect core of drummer Jeff Evans and bassist Chris Gangarossa, Lazlo's unique approach to making the most of each note is widely noticeable and enjoyed by their fans, both old and new. Their discipline and commitment to keeping the groove constitute the necessary backbone any prospering band must heed.
Jeff McLeod's steady, rhythmic jazz licks on the guitar provide beautiful melodies for Molloy to display a grand dexterity and feel on the keyboards
"We all have the feeling that one note can be just as powerful as 20 if it's the right one," Molloy said. "I like to think that it acts to form our sound.
"We tried to strip down a lot of our songs and arrange them in a way that, front to back, created a certain emotion or feeling to anyone who listened," he said. "So a lot of our time was spent toiling with the song order and deciding if the tone of an instrument on a track was really what we wanted."
Commencing with the aptly titled "Axelrod," the disc immediately gives the listener a glimpse into the Hollyfeld approach: solid, precise rhythms, slick organ and timely guitar fillers.
The guitar-key duet introduction to "You Think I Am" provides solid room for expansion in the live setting. Conversely, the over nine-minute "Enigma for Dummies" is a sometimes heavenly, sometimes passionate exploration of electronic and fusion soundscapes.
"As far as how we sound compared to the other bands in Buffalo, we're different," he said. "Our thoughts on generating our music are different than anyone else's around here. And that's the beauty of the music scene in Buffalo.
"Whenever I think about the amount of incredible talent around us it makes me very proud to say that we can be part of the mix," he added.
Buy Molloy and the band aren't the types to get engulfed by rock star ego.
"Not many people have the opportunity to do what we do and we know that. It's something we cherish and feel very humbled by," he said. "We have the chance to play our music live all the time and that's something none of us will ever give up."
Photo: Meredith Forrest Kulwicki
