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Ronan Guilfoyle's Bemusement Arcade: At Swing, Two Birds
by Ian Patterson
If there were Grammys for the most punning name for a jazz band, or for the most enigmatic album title, then Irish bassist Ronan Guilfoyle could well bag a brace. The title of the wonderfully coined Bemusement Arcade's debut album is a wordplay on Irish humorist Flann O'Brien's At Swim Two Birds (Longman Green & Co., 1939) --a wild and woolly work of satirical postmodern metafiction beloved by existential philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, writer Aldous Huxley and rock 'n' blues guitarist ...
Continue ReadingAleka Potinga: Romania: Songs Of Love And Longing
by Ian Patterson
You can take singer/cellist Aleka Potinga out of Romania, but you cannot take Romania out of her musical soul. Classically trained in Bucharest, and Dublin-based since 2012, Potinga has slotted into the city's fluid jazz/improvised music scenes, working with Izumi Kimura, Ronan Guilfoyle, Tommy Halferty and Cello Ireland. Her debut album Person I Knew (Self-Produced, 2019) featured imaginative interpretations of modern jazz classics by Wayne Shorter, Thelonious Monk and Bill Evans. Prior to that, her debut EP Aleka (EM, 2016) ...
Continue ReadingUmbra: West
by Ian Patterson
American road trips have long inspired writers, from Jack Kerouac, John Steinbeck and Tom Wolfe, to Hunter S. Thompson, Robert M. Pirsig and Bill Bryson. Fewer are the extended works, similarly inspired, written by musicians. Some things, it seems, may be easier put into words. Umbra's West is inspired by founding member Chris Guilfoyle's 2017 road trip, as evidenced through the song titles, through North America's Western states to Canada. It marks Umbra's full debut, but can be seen as ...
Continue ReadingMatch&Fuse Dublin 2017
by Ian Patterson
Match&Fuse Dublin 2017 dlr Lexicon, Dun Loaghaire, Dublin, Ireland September 16, 2017 “We are Rocky Road and we've existed since Wednesday," bassist Anneleen Boheme announced to the Saturday afternoon audience of the first Match&Fuse festival to be held in Ireland. Well, we're used to pop-up shops after all, so why not pop-up improvised music? Match&Fuse was conceived by London musician/promoter Dave Morecroft in 2011 as a festival and touring project to promote ...
Continue ReadingUmbra: Umbra
by Ian Patterson
Dublin guitarist/composer Chris Guilfoyle's Umbra has been around for half a decade, so its debut album can be seen as the product of patience and endurance. Critically acclaimed performances at the IMC's Down With Jazz and 12 Points festivals, as well as Bray Jazz, have helped raise the band's profile, but with band members not always residing in the same country, gigs have been too infrequent and tours too short for a combo of such evident talents. Forty minutes of ...
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