AGILE EXPERIMENTS - Alive In The Empire
Dave de Rose Records DDR014
John Edwards: double bass; Dan Nicholls: synths, samples, FX; George Crowley: saxophone, FX; Dave de Rose: drums
Recorded 21st November 2019 by Oliver Keen, live in The Empire Bar, Hackney
This is a live recording which captures the vivacity and gleefulness of group of improvisers work with a whole raft of effects to mutate the sounds of acoustic and electronic instruments. The name of the group is particularly apt, as the players shift with easy agility between different rhythms as they explore a variety of sounds. Throughout the couple of tracks, the bass lays down a solid groove around which the drums clatter their accompaniment and the saxophone is played with that raucous, coarse abandon that free-jazzers appreciate so much. At one level, the approach to playing owes much to the early days of rhythm and blues where sax players (like, say, Lee Allen) would honk and strut – albeit played at much faster and more disjointed tempo. By the third track, the rhythm shifts into break-beat drums on top of a bass line threatens to drop into something like a Latin riff but keeps stepping back, and layers of echoing synth and sax create a dub-like spaciness. There is, across these tracks, much of the ‘trip-hop’ sound from Bristol in the ‘80s as well as the avant-jazz-funk of Medeski, Martin and Wood. Then, once you think you have the sound pegged, track 5 has arco bass through some fuzzy effects and the sax quietly chattering behind it and even more electronic sounds. The closing number is almost all effects – as if the preceding numbers had been put through the sound board and a distilled version of the set created for the final 4 minutes or so.
While you get the sense of the improvisation happening while you listen and appreciate that the recording is live, the audience don’t seem to figure at all. This might be one of those recordings where the sound engineer and editor have removed audience noise, even at the end of tunes. Or it might be one of those live sessions where a spell-bound audience kept quiet for fear of missing the next twist in the playing. I’d like to think it was the latter, if only because repeated listening reveals more and more of the many layers of sound and musical ideas that the group created and kicked around during the set.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
Dave de Rose Records DDR014
John Edwards: double bass; Dan Nicholls: synths, samples, FX; George Crowley: saxophone, FX; Dave de Rose: drums
Recorded 21st November 2019 by Oliver Keen, live in The Empire Bar, Hackney
This is a live recording which captures the vivacity and gleefulness of group of improvisers work with a whole raft of effects to mutate the sounds of acoustic and electronic instruments. The name of the group is particularly apt, as the players shift with easy agility between different rhythms as they explore a variety of sounds. Throughout the couple of tracks, the bass lays down a solid groove around which the drums clatter their accompaniment and the saxophone is played with that raucous, coarse abandon that free-jazzers appreciate so much. At one level, the approach to playing owes much to the early days of rhythm and blues where sax players (like, say, Lee Allen) would honk and strut – albeit played at much faster and more disjointed tempo. By the third track, the rhythm shifts into break-beat drums on top of a bass line threatens to drop into something like a Latin riff but keeps stepping back, and layers of echoing synth and sax create a dub-like spaciness. There is, across these tracks, much of the ‘trip-hop’ sound from Bristol in the ‘80s as well as the avant-jazz-funk of Medeski, Martin and Wood. Then, once you think you have the sound pegged, track 5 has arco bass through some fuzzy effects and the sax quietly chattering behind it and even more electronic sounds. The closing number is almost all effects – as if the preceding numbers had been put through the sound board and a distilled version of the set created for the final 4 minutes or so.
While you get the sense of the improvisation happening while you listen and appreciate that the recording is live, the audience don’t seem to figure at all. This might be one of those recordings where the sound engineer and editor have removed audience noise, even at the end of tunes. Or it might be one of those live sessions where a spell-bound audience kept quiet for fear of missing the next twist in the playing. I’d like to think it was the latter, if only because repeated listening reveals more and more of the many layers of sound and musical ideas that the group created and kicked around during the set.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
