PETER URPETH QUARTET - Live at Café Oto
Digital-stream/download only
Available from Bandcamp
Peter Urpeth – piano; Terry Day - drums / percussion; Olie Brice – bass; Ntshuks Bonga - saxophone
Recorded live at Café Oto, Dalston, London July 2019
Peter Urpeth is a performance artist and pianist. He and the band play when the opportunity arises, which echoes the way in which they play, as this is a very free quartet. Other improvisers with whom he has worked include Derek Bailey, Lol Coxhill, Maggie Nicols and Evan Parker.
Bassist Olie Brice leads two bands - a quintet playing his original compositions and a freely improvising trio. He too has worked with other improvisers over the years, including Paul Dunmall and Ingrid Laubrock.
Terry Day is an improviser from the 60s, a lyricist, multi-instrumentalist, poet, songwriter and visual artist. He is self-taught. He became part of Kilburn & the Highroads, with Ian Dury, the band becoming one of the most-respected bands on London's early 70s pub/rock scene. Terry has collaborated with many musical leading lights, significant among them being Derek Bailey and David Toop.
Saxophonist Ntshuks Bonga has a different background entirely, as he arrived in London as a refugee from apartheid, at the age of seven. He appears on this album as a guest. His playing is raucous, which sits very well with the resonance of the bass, the turbulence of the piano and the scintillating, supple, featherlight brushwork of the drummer.
This is very connected music, thoroughly enjoyable and engrossing. It is penetratingly free music. The ways in which you listen will affect what you hear, as much as the ways in which it is created. Bonga’s playing helps turn the music to liquid, a liquid full of sand, like waves churned up by a thunderous sea. It is forcefully insolent, croaky, scratchy, yet sometimes muffled. It calls to you to lose the beloved riff – why plagiarise? Music has never wanted to be captive and here it isn’t. Delightfully free.
Reviewed by Ken Cheetham
Digital-stream/download only
Available from Bandcamp
Peter Urpeth – piano; Terry Day - drums / percussion; Olie Brice – bass; Ntshuks Bonga - saxophone
Recorded live at Café Oto, Dalston, London July 2019
Peter Urpeth is a performance artist and pianist. He and the band play when the opportunity arises, which echoes the way in which they play, as this is a very free quartet. Other improvisers with whom he has worked include Derek Bailey, Lol Coxhill, Maggie Nicols and Evan Parker.
Bassist Olie Brice leads two bands - a quintet playing his original compositions and a freely improvising trio. He too has worked with other improvisers over the years, including Paul Dunmall and Ingrid Laubrock.
Terry Day is an improviser from the 60s, a lyricist, multi-instrumentalist, poet, songwriter and visual artist. He is self-taught. He became part of Kilburn & the Highroads, with Ian Dury, the band becoming one of the most-respected bands on London's early 70s pub/rock scene. Terry has collaborated with many musical leading lights, significant among them being Derek Bailey and David Toop.
Saxophonist Ntshuks Bonga has a different background entirely, as he arrived in London as a refugee from apartheid, at the age of seven. He appears on this album as a guest. His playing is raucous, which sits very well with the resonance of the bass, the turbulence of the piano and the scintillating, supple, featherlight brushwork of the drummer.
This is very connected music, thoroughly enjoyable and engrossing. It is penetratingly free music. The ways in which you listen will affect what you hear, as much as the ways in which it is created. Bonga’s playing helps turn the music to liquid, a liquid full of sand, like waves churned up by a thunderous sea. It is forcefully insolent, croaky, scratchy, yet sometimes muffled. It calls to you to lose the beloved riff – why plagiarise? Music has never wanted to be captive and here it isn’t. Delightfully free.
Reviewed by Ken Cheetham
