Nathan Daems hears a band in every living body. To him “every cell is an individual system”, and a body is countless cells working in concert, which is the idea behind “Multicellularity”, the new single by his quartet Echoes of Zoo, named after the biologists’ word for life made of many cells. Daems, the Belgian group’s saxophonist and founder, calls that kind of teamwork “collective intelligence”, many individuals acting as one, and he expects it of his own musicians: “When we play together, we act as one”.

On “Multicellularity” the four of them do: Lieven Van Pée circles one bass figure while the drummer Falk Schrauwen clatters drily around it and faint electronic blips and swishes drift through a dub-leaning mix. Over the top Daems and the electric guitarist Bart Vervaeck play the melody as one instrument, note for note, a quick line on an Arabic maqam scale that keeps breaking into the sudden ornaments of the Balkan music Daems loves.

“Multicellularity” is the fourth single from Collective Intelligence, after “Flock Logic”, “Higher Levels” and “Wolf Pack Telepathy”, and the album, named after Daems’s phrase, was released on 2 October by Zephyrus Records and Rebel Up!

Listen to “Multicellularity” HERE and get your copy of Collective Intelligence following THIS LINK