Been there etc.

I'm a sucker for a good cause, so yeah, I splashed-out.


Besides, this is the old design, no longer available!

Quiet Thunder

Whoa, check this out:

The Wonder Trail album launch gig is 3 May at Kings Place. 

I'm probably going to have to completely mash-up my diary, and take endless grief from my partner, but I'm planning on getting there. 

It'll be worth it.

Return to Mind album launch

Eyolf Dale, Kings Place, 4 April.

According to his label, Edition Records: 

'the poetic and expressive... Norwegian pianist Eyolf Dale has confirmed his promise and reputation as a strong band leader, creative composer and an expressive soloist with a taste for melodies and interplay that summon powerful musical imaginations. With the launch of his new album Return to Mind, Eyolf has developed his elegant and warm sound into a divine and powerfully emotive sound... Eyolf Dale is vital rising star of the highly creative European Jazz scene.'



The usual label promo hyperbole notwithstanding (Edition Records do produce some consistently high-quality music) this should be a great gig. 

Tickets are still on sale.


And here's a youtube preview:

Circuits Bent

Elliot Galvin: The Influencing Machine album launch, 21 February 2018, the Vortex.

I first came across the phenomenon that is Elliot Galvin live at Dinosaur’s Together As One album launch, and in this trio form warming up for jazz supergroup Aziza at the Cadogan Hall. I was duly impressed on both occasions. 

Add in the social media build up and the pre-release promotion on bandcamp for The Influencing Machine, and I’d whipped myself up into a something of an anticipatory lather ahead of this opener to the trio's promo tour. 

I’m happy to report that I wasn’t disappointed. 

These three startling young musicians delivered a blistering, interval-free set, showcasing the whole album. As I often find myself saying, if you haven’t heard it yet, put it on your shopping list.

The Vortex’s intimacy as a venue provided the perfect setting, allowing Galvin to interact with a rapt audience, explaining some of the inspiration behind his compositions, and expounding the virtues of circuit bending by way of a Dora the Explorer keyboard – wow!

At times Elliot appeared like a youthful mad scientist; yet his toys-atop-the-Steinway approach never felt forced, or gimmicky, or obscured his formidable piano technique. Mixed in with the quirky sound effects, tempo changes and bursts of sonic craziness was some stunningly beautiful playing. Indeed, this is a band chock-full of youthful virtuosity. Corrie Dick, introduced by Elliot with the prefix “amazing”, responded to his bandleader’s spikey improvisations with mesmerising technique behind the drumkit, while Tom McCreddie spun basslines threading through the space between - I love those percussive breaks he delivers – and electric guitar excursions.  

The InfluencingMachine is out now on vinyl, CD and download, and there are still a few dates of the tour left. 

Catch them if you can. Your circuits will be bent for ever more. 

Spellbound

If all the column inches allotted to Yazz Ahmed’s second release on Naim records were laid end to end, they’d reach from here to her Bahrain birth place and back. Okay, so I just made that up, but La Saboteuse does seem to have caught the interest of professional and amateur critics alike, occupying acres of print and megabytes of cyberspace.

Considering this, finding something new to say about it is no easy task, but I feel compelled to write about it anyhow. Prior to hearing it, reviews I’d read universally piled on the acclaim. Despite my scepticism of extravagant praise, I have to say that it’s all fully deserved. If you haven’t heard this album, you really, really need to get hold of a copy.

On the strength of reviews, Yazz’s previous Finding My Way Home album and, of course Jazzy G’s recommendation, I caught her King’s Place septet gig last November. It became my highlight of a day crammed with stand-out London Jazz Festival performances. I joined the back of a long queue for signed copies of the album afterwards, and it’s been a frequent flyer on my Hi-Fi since.

The recording gets about as close to capturing the live vibe as a studio album can, but these aren’t brash, in-your-face tunes; they’re quietly seductive. I defy anyone to hear the beautiful Bloom, and not be beguiled. Yazz’s Bahraini-British influences shine through melodically and rhythmically with electronica adding additional atmospherics.  An unusual line-up (piano/keyboards, vibraphone, guitar, percussion, bass, drums, trumpet/flugel horn) leaves a surprising amount of space for improvisation, thanks to some inspired arrangements. The addition of Shabaka Hutchings’ bass clarinet provides the perfect counter to Yazz’s long, exquisite horn lines, and Martin France’s frenetic drumming somehow emphasises the subtlety of the overall sound.

This is an exotic, heady mix that insistently, inexorably reels you in. I put on La Saboteuse while working, only to find myself listening intently to its complex layers without realising I’d forgotten what I was supposed to be doing.

La Saboteuse casts a spell, and you’ll be glad you were caught in it. Highly recommended.