Category Archives: CD REVIEWS

Reviews of Australian albums published in the Sunday Herald Sun liftout, Play

KELLER, LACEY, TALIA — THREE LANES

Posted on April 16, 2012 | Leave a comment

CD review

Three Lanes

4 stars

Self-released (AK001)
Genevieve Lacey (recorders), Joe Talia (Revox B77, electronics & percussion) and Andrea Keller (piano)

A sizeable dollop of gratitude is due to the two-year Australia Council Fellowship program that has allowed composer Keller to create what she describes as “new music” with two “broad-minded” musical colleagues. It’s not surprising that this foray out of Keller’s comfort zone works so well — after all, her work is always lit brightly by the spark of originality, and that must be said also of Lacey and Talia.

All 14 pieces show cohesion and a sense of progression that reflect the musicians’ awareness of each other’s voices as well as a commitment to the journey and destination. Acoustic, electronic, prepared, improvised and composed elements are interwoven with subtlety, so that there is no feel of artificiality or domination by devices.

In the most compelling compositions — Far Away Here, Between Six & Six, Interlude, Collage IV and Stay — piano remains a powerful presence. Talia’s work on Revox B77 and electronics is discreet and evocative throughout. Lacey — in Nine Variations, Stay and Diddy Ditty for example — shows the versatility of her instrument in mood and affect.

This is experimental music, but the experiment works so well that any tentative hypotheses are subsumed by the successful outcome.

A standalone work, Boy, is available exclusively by digital download.

File between: Gest8, Origami

Favourites: Stay, Far Away Here

ROGER MITCHELL

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MIKE NOCK TRIO PLUS — HEAR AND KNOW

Posted on April 14, 2012 | Leave a comment

CD REVIEW

Hear and know

4 stars
FWM Records
Mike Nock piano, James Waples drums, Ben Waples double bass, Karl Laskowski tenor saxophone, Ken Allars trumpet

This trio’s first album, An Accumulation of Subtleties, was a triumph, demonstrating on two discs how well the Waples brothers work with Nock’s presence and mastery. Hear and Know is altered radically by the addition of horns — it is fascinating to hear how the “plus” of sax and trumpet influence the character of this album, often expanding the sound to wide vistas of cinematic proportions.

The result is a richly expressive foray into varied moods and styles, making this outing full of interest. The opening title track demonstrates this, moving through intimate piano and bass to sweeping ruminations of brass, with an intricate overlay of bass, before a lively jaunt. The diversity continues with slow, soaring horn interplay in The Sibylline Fragrance, a whole forming from fragments in the melee of Colours, and a minimalist opening stretched in scope by soaring horns in After Satie.

Komodo Dragon is a feast of melodies and conversations with an entree of staccato trumpet and breathy sax, while If Truth Be Known is big, powerful and eventually swinging, underpinned by Nock’s deep, grumblings and topped by strident horns. Gathering intensity is also evident in the closing Slow News Day, suggestive perhaps that some late wire taps eventually produced a front page.

Laskowski and the exciting Allars add a great deal to this collection of Nock originals, though for me it’s not quite enough to top the trio’s earlier Subtleties.

Hear and Know illustrates again that Mike Nock is always on the move and never stuck in the here and now.

File between: Paul Grabowsky, Tomasz Stanko

Download: Colours, If Truth Be Known

ROGER MITCHELL

This album includes a booklet of photographs taken by Gerard Anderson.

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ASSAF KEHATI QUARTET — FLOWERS AND OTHER STORIES

Posted on March 24, 2012 | Leave a comment

CD REVIEW

Assaf Kehati Quartet

Assaf Kehati guitar, Alon Farber saxophone, Daniel Sapir bass, Udi Shlomo drums

3 + stars

This is the second album — after A View from My Window — for Israeli-born guitarist Kehati, who has lived in Boston, US, since moving there in 2007 to study at the New England Conservatory. In all seven of his compositions he plays with dexterity, restraint and subtlety in a well balanced quartet with a relaxed, ruminative and at times dreamy disposition.

Kehati’s musings call to mind Bill Frisell and Pat Metheny, combining well with Farber’s drifting notes in the opening Calling Me Home and engaging in some pleasing interplay in Mr Mario, which also features nimble guitar over agile drum work. The slow ballad Tali features Farber’s sax floating and dancing on high.

The longest piece, The Most Beautiful Flower, has unhurried bass and drums working well with guitar before a gradual build in tempo, focus and intensity in which a Farber solo then gives way to sparse guitar before a segue into the dreamy, expansive horizon music of The Snow and the Sun.

Don’t Attack seems to be warding off an onslaught that never arises, this track showing some gain and wane in intensity, but mainly confirming the ensemble’s complimentarity. The album closes with subdued guitar in Invisible Green.

Rather than the devil being in the detail of this album, its intricacy and minutiae are its strengths. If there is a devil, it is in a lack of contrast between the compositions. Kehati’s quartet delivers his material well, communicating with care a mood of gentle introspection that seems to suit contemplation, daydreaming or reverie.

But it is tempting to wish that the ensemble would break out via different compositions or that the guitar and sax would let forth an occasional storm to tell disparate stories or blow some flowers off their stalks.

ROGER MITCHELL

File between: Bill Frisell, Pat Metheny

Download: Don’t Attack

Assaf Kehati’s website

Kehati’s albums on cdbaby

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SARCOPHILE — MARC HANNAFORD TRIO

Posted on March 24, 2012 | Leave a comment

CD REVIEW

Sarcophile

4 stars

Marc Hannaford piano, Sam Pankhurst bass, James McLean drums

There’s meat in this music as well as in the PDF file that serves as liner notes to this digital only release. But, despite the title’s reference to a carnivorous animal, especially the Tasmanian devil, there is no hint of frenzied tearing at raw flesh.

Rather these eight tracks are evidence of pianist Hannaford’s intelligently analytical, deliberate and sharply focused approach to compositions influenced by his immersion in the atonal and rhythmically complex music of American composer Elliott Carter.

Pankhurst and McLean are perfectly attuned to Hannaford’s intent, delivering the intensity and strength called for at times, while at others exhibiting the reserve and subtlety necessary to provide relief.

This is not music for the faint hearted, yet is far from inaccessible if the listener can give in and let the currents and eddies have full control.

Go with it as you would on a carnival ride that is totally unexpected in its changes of direction and pace, builds expectation through developing patterns of movement, thrills with the robust drive of the chase and slows to periods almost of quiescence and this album will sustain and delight. But struggle against the momentum in a vain search for more easeful and traditional melodies or harmonies and this music will be difficult.

A sense of wry humour is always present. It’s easy to imagine an unfamiliar audience requesting “something we know” and getting track three, Something We Know, or calling for “something we can dance to” and getting the final track, Something We Can Dance To.

One person’s meat is another person’s poison (to use the PC version of the saying), but even musical vegetarians should get their teeth into Sarcophile, provided they are prepared to get a taste for it.

ROGER MITCHELL

Sarcophile is available through iTunes, Bandcamp and cdbaby

Sarcophile booklet

An image from the downloadable PDF of this album.

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TOP 10 ALBUMS FOR 2011

Posted on December 18, 2011 | Leave a comment

ROGER MITCHELL picks his favourite albums for the year

A top 10 is a little like a star rating — how can diverse albums be assessed against each other according to some sort of merit test? But I’ve been happy over the past few years to prepare such a list for the Sunday Herald Sun‘s Play liftout because it is another way for people to hear about albums they may like to buy and enjoy. Reviewers were given 20 words in which to describe each album.

I chose from albums I’d reviewed during the year, and some I have not reviewed yet. The main test I applied for this top 10 was to ask myself which albums I had played most.

1. Sandy Evans

When the Sky Cries Rainbows

Evans’ suite expresses love and hope amidst suffering in this inspirational journey evoking life’s myriad hues and states of mind.

2. Luke Howard, Janos Bruneel

Open Road

Belgian Bruneel’s warm, muscular bass complements the pure, cool and often pensive Howard, drawing out the pianist’s brooding power.

3. Tim Stevens Trio

Scare Quotes

Textures are tangible, timbres and tempos vary as the trio’s ability to build tension and hold our attention never wavers.

4. Browne, Hannaford, Anning

Shreveport Stomp

Superbly creative and uncompromising modern jazz that dips its lid to Monk, Parker, Ellington, Jelly Roll Morton and Ornette Coleman.

5. Origami

The Blues of Joy

Dreamy, slow openers unfold to playful verve, then darkly tense and restless, edgy pieces exploring timbre, dynamics and saxophone versatility.

6. Inside Out

In Cahoots

Marc Hannaford’s pianistic mastery matches the mellow musings, larrikin playfulness and shimmying, soaring and blazing sinuosity of Paul Williamson’s trumpet.

7. The Jazzgroove Mothership Orchestra

Kristin Berardi Meets the Jazzgroove Mothership Orchestra

The ensemble’s subtlety, control and empathy give Berardi space to weave her evocative, finely crafted vocals between layers of instrumentation.

8. The Andrew Dickeson Quintet

Weaver of Dreams

In his debut as leader, drummer Dickeson arranges classic tunes and a swinging line-up to deliver them to a live audience.


9. Nick Haywood Quartet

1234

Simple tunes develop complexity in the hands of this quartet, guided by bassist Haywood with a commitment to collaborative spontaneity.

10. Leigh Barker

The New Sheiks

Turn your home into a gig with this lively, warm, irresistibly toe-tapping ensemble’s take on good old blues-infused jazz.

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ALL WE ARE SAYING — BILL FRISELL

Posted on December 4, 2011 | Leave a comment

CD review

Bill Frisell

3.5 stars

Savoy Jazz

Angst is not something associated with guitar maestro Bill Frisell, so when his quintet of violinist Jenny Scheinman, pedal steel and acoustic guitarist Greg Leisz, bassist Tony Scherr and drummer Kenny Wollesen tackles John Lennon’s pain-filled Mother, it’s not quite as dark as the original with lyrics.

Frisell’s band bares the compositional bones of 16 Lennon songs (seven with McCartney) and weaves its colourful magic thereon, often catching the spirit of the originals while wrapping them differently.

Familiar melodies and harmonies can take a while to drift in amidst the swirl and swell of strings, while others are immediately recognisable. Give Peace a Chance is strangely surreal.

Frisell’s light embroidery reveals the essence of these tunes.

Download: Mother, Across the Universe
File between: John Lennon, Pat Metheny

ROGER MITCHELL

This review also appeared in the Play section of the Sunday Herald Sun on December 4, 2011

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RESIDUAL — PETER KNIGHT, DUNG NGUYEN

Posted on November 27, 2011 | Leave a comment

CD review

residual

(Parenthèses Records)

3 stars

Peter Knight on trumpet, cornet, prepared piano, voice, laptop electronics, real-time processing
Dung Nguyen on dan tranh, prepared dan tranh, dan bau, modified electric guitar

Fans of the successful and popular jazz ensemble Way Out West, of which Knight and Nguyen are members, may find this album a shock to the system. Knight’s performances with solo trumpet and laptop would be a better preparation for this excursion into new music.

Parentheses Records’ website has links to a number of reviews, some quite long, and an article by Knight in the Australian Music Centre’s Resonate Magazine.

I think one difficulty in assessing this music is that the intention to detail of the creators and the subtleties of the end product may be quite separate from what is perceived by the listener. Another is the perennial tension between giving a description of any music (in order to give the reader an idea of what to expect) and the need, in a review, to critically appraise or assess how well it works.

There is no simple solution to these issues, and raising them is probably a stalling tactic. So, on with my succinct review. Residual is at times filled with brooding, building intensity (as in the opening, title track) and at others (as in Travelling) makes an excursion into quite strong, even abrasive, rhythmic patterns that also gather potency over time. Minky Star swells and pulsates with sonic textures suggestive of a living, breathing organism that may be experiencing a variety of physical or emotional states, many of them unsettling. The pulsating effect is texturally grating and mesmeric, rather than necessarily pleasant. Phase Pedal is dominated by increasingly insistent percussion, behind which are prolonged or stretched notes which complement, but never come into the foreground.

In the final track of this relatively short rendition of Knight’s compositions, Autumn Music, we are treated to the flute-like sound of a trumpet played without the mouthpiece and the shimmering, bending notes of Dung’s single-stringed dan bau. It is the most immediately appealing piece on the CD, possibly because it has more in common with some of Dung’s contributions to tracks from Way Out West’s albums in which he demonstrates his virtuosity on traditional Vietnamese instruments.

Does it work? Yes, but within the confines of music that is exploratory, challenging and compelling rather than in any way swinging, toe-tapping or melodic. It definitely has the tension which is often important to command attention, but it is “serious” rather than “fun” music. There are hints of jazz and of Asia, but this is taking a new direction.

ROGER MITCHELL

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AMBROSIA — JACQUELINE GAWLER

Posted on October 16, 2011 | Leave a comment

CD REVIEW

Ambrosia

3 stars (out of 5)

Label: Independent

Known for her singer/songwriter work with Coco’s Lunch, as well as other collaborations in The Jacqueline Gawler Band, Stoneflower and Picturebox Orchestra, Gawler goes it alone here in an album of mostly her own compositions.

Not straying too far from her usual fare of pop infused with jazz and world music influences — in particular from West Africa and Brazil — Gawler nevertheless comes up with some inventive and agile approaches to her songs, as well as captivating lyrics.

The most intriguing composition is the rapid-fire Varkala, sung so quickly it is almost mandatory to have the lyrics handy at first listening. The deft pacing as Gawler takes us through “ocean blue clean sheet sand feet blue sky blue eyes voice floats men gloat fishing boat bloated goat …” is full of playful energy and the expressive words conjure split-second images that stay in the mind.

This song, as well as the rhythmically strong and vocally adventurous Sahara nights, demonstrate Gawler’s talent as a song writer of intelligence, with sense of poetry and a love of language. Another lyrically appealing composition is When passengers write poetry and flight attendants sing, in which the band cranks up a little.

Gawler, who aside from vocals contributes on piano, Nord electro 73, kalimba, music box, Tibetan prayer chimes, shakere, bells and shaker, is joined by Fran Swinn (guitars, loops), Christopher Hale (acoustic bass guitar, electric bass, lap steel guitar, mandolin, pandeiro, surdo and agogo) and Ben Hendry (drums, percussion).

Guests include Eugene Ball on trumpet, Ben Gillespie on trombone and voice, Anthony Schultz on piano accordion, Simone Lang on cajon and Tamara Murphy on bass — it’s a veritable party.

Perhaps some tracks are over orchestrated and a little fussier than they need be (that may be the pop influence), which makes the Chris Cornell composition Black Hole Sun especially appealing because its simplicity stands out.

It would be nice to hear Gawler dig a little deeper vocally at times and let her voice shine through with less accompaniment, but this album has a light but intrepid feel that recalls Megan Washington in her pre-pop incarnation.

ROGER MITCHELL

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ORIGAMI — THE BLUES OF JOY

Posted on October 16, 2011 | Leave a comment

CD REVIEW

Origami — The Blues of Joy

4 stars

Listen/Hear Collective

The hand-folded CD case is ingenious, but as the music unfolds it is clear this trio is thinking outside the box.

For this outing of mostly his originals, Adam Simmons uncharacteristically limits himself to alto sax, taking obvious delight in its versatility.

Howard Cairns, on bowed as well as plucked bass, and Anthony Baker on drums are equally moved to celebrate their instruments’ timbre and dynamics.

Don’t be lulled by the dreamy, slow openers, or the title track’s playful verve.

The grit comes in darkly tense Chimera, with growling bowed bass and protesting sax, and the restless, edgy Morse Code.

Jitters is carefree before a minor maelstrom, Chasing Cars revels in unhurried spaces.

Origami’s debut discloses many layers of intensity.

Download: Chimera, Morse Code

File between: Tom Christensen, Sandy Evans

ROGER MITCHELL

This review also appeared in the Play liftout of Melbourne’s Sunday Herald Sun on October 16, 2011.

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KRISTIN BERARDI MEETS THE JAZZGROOVE MOTHERSHIP ORCHESTRA

Posted on October 2, 2011 | 5 Comments

CD REVIEW

Kristin Berardi vocals; Aaron Flower guitar; Steven Barry piano; Brendan Clarke contrabass; Evan Mannell drums & cymbals; David Theak, Murray Jackson, Richard Maegraith, Matt Keegan, Nick Bowd saxophones, clarinet & flute; Simon Sweeney, Angus Gomm, Simon Ferenci, Andy Fiddes trumpets; Jeremy Borthwick, Dave Panichi, Lucian McGuiness, Justin Kearin trombones

Kristin Berardi Meets the JMO

4 stars

IT is testimony to the talents of six arrangers, 17 Mothership musicians and vocalist Berardi that her compositions are rendered so sensitively.

Under saxophonist David Theak’s direction the ensemble displays such subtlety, exquisite control and empathy that Berardi’s evocative and finely crafted vocals are given vital space.

The soloist is able to weave with fluidity and agility between layers of instrumentation, the sensibility and insight of her lyrics — exemplified in Ode to Oli and The Old Fashioned Way — never lost despite the ensemble’s size.

And vocal solos are not the only attraction of this outing. Given the improvisational room, Mothership players deliver in spades.

Download: Ode to Oli, Mr Jackson

File between: Mace Francis Orchestra, Johannes Luebbers Dectet

ROGER MITCHELL

This review also appeared in the Play liftout of the Sunday Herald Sun on October 2, 2011

Kristin Berardi

Kristin Berardi with the Jazzgroove Mothership Orchestra at Stonnington Jazz 2011

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