Inspirated by...
There's a particular kind of courage in naming your debut EP after a debt.
B-Vox don't hide their sources — they put them right on the cover, literally: a trumpeter's silhouette in violet mist, a ghost over the shoulder. Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Wes Montgomery, Bohren und der Club of Gore — the list of influences could read like a pretender's manifesto. Instead, it reads as honesty.
«Maivis» opens the EP with deliberate slowness: the beat arrives later than you'd expect and leaves earlier. The title — an obvious contamination of two names — sets the tone for what follows: this isn't quotation but remelting. A melodic line that could pass for a trumpet turns out to be something more blurred, more uncertain — a gesture toward Kind of Blue, but made of different material.
«Last Train to Eden» is the centre of gravity here. Five minutes of almost no motion, in which, nonetheless, something steadily shifts. Bohren is most audible here: the same nocturnal patience, the same conviction that silence isn't a pause but an argument.
«Procrastination» is the only moment where the EP allows itself something close to irony. Montgomery is present not in the chords but in the approach: that same apparent carelessness with precision hidden beneath. The rhythmic structure slightly comes apart, as if on purpose; loops repeat a bar longer than is comfortable. The title is earned.
«Dark As A Midnight» closes the record in the Bohren spirit — the same nocturnal patience, the same conviction that silence isn't a pause but an argument. Almost six minutes that aren't trying to go anywhere — and for exactly that reason arrive where they need to.
Inspirated by... is an EP that knows what it's worth and doesn't claim more. In that modesty lies its main strength.