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Roamer: Lost Bees
by Ian Patterson
Roamer is vocalist Lauren Kinsella, drummer Matthew Jacobson, bassist/guitarist Simon Jermyn and saxophonist/flautist Matthew Halpin—four of Ireland's most lauded creative musicians. Formed in 2016, the quartet's activities have been frustratingly intermittent in the interim, though it is hardly surprising given that its members are based in London, Cologne, Berlin and Dublin. One early highlight came in 2017, when Roamer collaborated with Irish poet Cherry Smyth in an Arts Council-funded project at Bray Jazz Festival. That project has evolved to the ...
read moreBigSpoon: The Return Of The Prodigal Son
by Ian Patterson
South African saxophonist Chris Engel has been a ubiquitous figure on the Irish jazz/improvised scene since arriving in Dublin in 2011. Whether in Chris Guilfoyle's modernist Umbra, Cote Calmet's Afro-Peruvian-inspired Phisqa, Italian guitarist Julien Colarossi's quartet or the Weather Report tribute band, Plaza Real, Engel's commitment is total, his fierce technique matched by a fearless improvisatory spirit. Engel has also embraced the world of electronica, notably in the duo Cafolla-Engel, whose DJ/improvised saxophone sets whip up the night owls. Engel, ...
read morePanos Ghikas: Unrealtime
by Ian Patterson
The cover of Greek composer/improvisor Panos Ghikas' Unrealtime certainly piques the curiosity regarding the musical content within the grooves. The title provides just a whiff of a clue. The plot thickens with a perusal of the personnel, which reveals, that alongside Nick Roth on alto and soprano saxophones and Luis Tabuenca on percussion, the leader handles 'unrealtime interface' and pianist Pavlos Antoniadis doubles on 'motion followers.' On this evidence alone it would not be unreasonable to expect technological and conceptual ...
read moreLina Andonovska: A Way A Lone A Last
by Ian Patterson
Solo flute albums rarely clog up the world's second-hand vinyl bins. More's the pity, for the flute's sounds are timeless. In prehistoric times people played flutes made from bones and mammoth ivory--making the connection between the air inhaled and exhaled to produce music. Or sounds, for there is, and always has been, a fine line between the two. On her debut solo album, classically trained, Australian flutist Lina Andonovska responds to five contemporary compositions by Irish/Ireland-based composers. The Dublin-based Australian ...
read moreReDiviDeR: Mere Nation
by Ian Patterson
It may be disappointing to enigmatologists that there are no palindromes or obvious anagrams from ReDiviDeR on its third Diatribe Records release, following Never Odd Or Even (2011) and I Dig Monk, Tuned (2013). Musicophiles, however, should be delighted, for like its predecessors, Mere Nation is a colorful box of delights. Rambunctious, brooding and tender in turn, drummer Matthew Jacobson's compositions explore a heady no man's land between discipline and freedom. Thirteen years into ReDiviDeR's trajectory, Jacobson, alto ...
read moreCaoimhín Ó Raghallaigh/Garth Knox: All Soundings Are True
by Ian Patterson
Unlike notated music, where one wrongly sounded note can jar terribly, improvised music obeys no stringent laws. It can jar but it's never wrong. Indeed, the concept of what constitutes music--our appreciation or tolerance for some sounds but not others--is frequently challenged by improvisers, for whom all sounds are valid. Fiddler Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh (This Is How We Fly, The Gloaming) and violist Garth Knox (the Arditti Quartet, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Saltarello Trio), have long applied such a free-spirited philosophy to ...
read moreOKO: I Love You Computer Mountain
by Ian Patterson
While pretty much all music is derivative, and to a greater or lesser degree inspired by what has gone before, every so often a band appears that shakes up the status quo. OKO--formed in 2010 out of the jny:Dublin collective Bottleneck--certainly doesn't hide its influences on its debut recording, but its musical paint box of electronica, free-jazz, noise, dub, drone, funk and ambient sounds dishes up a colorful collage that dares to be different. Darragh O'Kelly's dreamy electric ...
read moreFrancesco Turrisi: Grigio
by Ian Patterson
For pianist Francesco Turrisi 'old' music is a redundant term. In the Dublin-based Italian's world all music exists in a continuum. Turrisi's debut, Si Dolce e il Tormento (Diatribe Records, 2009) may be the only example of the mediaeval theorbo--a long-necked lute-- in a jazz setting. Fotografia (Diatribe Records, 2011)--a series of piano trio improvisations--veered between free-jazz abstraction and Mediterranean and Brazilian blues lyricism. For Songs of Experience (Taquin Records, 2013), Turrisi eschewed bass in favor of Fulvio Sigurtà's trumpet ...
read moreReDiviDeR: ReDiviDeR meets I Dig Monk, Tuned
by Ian Patterson
Jazz/creative music fans who dig palindromes and anagrams had to wait a long time between trumpeter Miles Davis' Live Evil (Columbia, 1971) and ReDiviDeR's debut Never Odd or EveN (Diatribe Records, 2011). Forty years must be an eternity for addicts of words that spell the same way backwards as they do forwards. In addition to the wordplay, ReDiviDeR's debut announced the arrival of an exciting two-horn, no-chord band on the Irish jazz scene. Inspired by modernists such as bassist Charles ...
read moreThought-Fox: My Guess
by Ian Patterson
Thought-Fox is a quintet led by Lauren Kinsella, whose adventurism was already apparent on All This Talk About (WideEarRecords, 2012), an intimate series of improvisations with drummer Alex Huber. In a short time, the Irish singer has garnered glowing praise for her voice--a thing of rare beauty--and for her very personal improvisational style. Improvisations certainly color the music here, and though possible to imagine Kinsella performing these songs as duos--a format she enjoys--the quintet lends greater structural form as well ...
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