SUGARWORK - Sugarwork
Harriphonic 1801
Paul Harrison: keyboards, piano; Stuart Brown: drums, percussion; Graeme Stephen: guitar; Phil Bancroft: tenor saxophone
Recorded 26th and 27th March, and 20th May 2017 by Gus Stirrat at Solas Sound, Glasgow
Formed in Scotland by Paul Harrison, Sugarwork is a group that takes some of the idea of harmelodics and pushes these into heavier places. I am familiar with Harrison from his work with the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra and Dave Liebman (although his credentials are much longer than this). In the press release, he notes a debt to ‘electronica’, and there been moves towards this in previous projects, like Trianglehead and Herschel36. Taken together this creates a highly diverse set of explorations of electronic sounds from a variety of musical traditions. It feels as if on Sugarwork that he has found a way of melding this variety into a coherent form that works with improvising instruments.
Two of the shorter pieces (‘Bad data’ and ‘The stairs’) are collective improvisations, that bristle and crackle with all manner of unexplained sounds. On the other tracks, bass lines from the keyboards burble behind sax that shifts effortlessly up and down the gears and a guitar that works a wide range of styles. There is a hint of this in the riffs of the opening track ‘Habit control’, and some really interesting post-rock groove pushing ‘After the forest, the sky’ (which is my favourite track on the CD and a good way to appreciate the twists and turns of Harrison’s compositions and the way the band can shift mood and tempo on a sixpence). The band can deliver heavy when they want to, as shown not only of the power riffs of the opener but also during the 14 minute ‘Astralagia’, which (as John Peel used to say) ‘starts quietly’…, before pulling no punches in blistering guitar and sax solos, and then fading out into video-games blips and squirts over an almost dub bass pattern. Rhythmically the band steers a course that is difficult to pin down; certainly there is much of skittish changes of tempo of post-bop, which underpins many of the pieces, but that there are also hints of prog-rock - by which I mean the good end, like King Crimson rather than the turgid thudding end, like almost anyone who aren’t King Crimson; indeed, the way that the band approach to job of working solos into the pieces is far more reminiscent of new-wave, art-rock bands and there is plenty of space to appreciate the ingenious structures that Harrison gives to each piece. It is worth noting that he doesn’t play many obvious solos himself, but is clearly leading from the front and through the charts that he’s provided the other players.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
Harriphonic 1801
Paul Harrison: keyboards, piano; Stuart Brown: drums, percussion; Graeme Stephen: guitar; Phil Bancroft: tenor saxophone
Recorded 26th and 27th March, and 20th May 2017 by Gus Stirrat at Solas Sound, Glasgow
Formed in Scotland by Paul Harrison, Sugarwork is a group that takes some of the idea of harmelodics and pushes these into heavier places. I am familiar with Harrison from his work with the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra and Dave Liebman (although his credentials are much longer than this). In the press release, he notes a debt to ‘electronica’, and there been moves towards this in previous projects, like Trianglehead and Herschel36. Taken together this creates a highly diverse set of explorations of electronic sounds from a variety of musical traditions. It feels as if on Sugarwork that he has found a way of melding this variety into a coherent form that works with improvising instruments.
Two of the shorter pieces (‘Bad data’ and ‘The stairs’) are collective improvisations, that bristle and crackle with all manner of unexplained sounds. On the other tracks, bass lines from the keyboards burble behind sax that shifts effortlessly up and down the gears and a guitar that works a wide range of styles. There is a hint of this in the riffs of the opening track ‘Habit control’, and some really interesting post-rock groove pushing ‘After the forest, the sky’ (which is my favourite track on the CD and a good way to appreciate the twists and turns of Harrison’s compositions and the way the band can shift mood and tempo on a sixpence). The band can deliver heavy when they want to, as shown not only of the power riffs of the opener but also during the 14 minute ‘Astralagia’, which (as John Peel used to say) ‘starts quietly’…, before pulling no punches in blistering guitar and sax solos, and then fading out into video-games blips and squirts over an almost dub bass pattern. Rhythmically the band steers a course that is difficult to pin down; certainly there is much of skittish changes of tempo of post-bop, which underpins many of the pieces, but that there are also hints of prog-rock - by which I mean the good end, like King Crimson rather than the turgid thudding end, like almost anyone who aren’t King Crimson; indeed, the way that the band approach to job of working solos into the pieces is far more reminiscent of new-wave, art-rock bands and there is plenty of space to appreciate the ingenious structures that Harrison gives to each piece. It is worth noting that he doesn’t play many obvious solos himself, but is clearly leading from the front and through the charts that he’s provided the other players.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
