A curious stylistic mix that possibly tries to cover too many prog bases, from the bombastic prog of Lift The Memory to the unsettling ambient soundscapes of Starlit Motion, this album sounds like a fleeting meeting of highly individual musical…
View More Kaukasus – I
Now over 70, Jack Bruce still plays live fairly regularly, and here presents us with his first solo record in over ten years. Anything but tired, these are ten cracking new songs that fans and newcomers alike will doubtless enjoy.…
View More Jack Bruce – Silver Rails
Billy Bottle is a pianist and multi-instrumentalist, best known as a member of jazz luminary Mike Westbrook’s Big Band. Billy’s own occasional group The Multiple is led by the accomplished vocals of Martine Waltier and the rest of the band…
View More Billy Bottle & The Multiple – Unrecorded Beam
A bass clef three hander awaits the adventurous listener in Twinscapes. Written and performed by Colin Edwin of Porcupine Tree fame, and his Italian colleague Lorenzo Feliciati, whom I last came across as part of the appropriately named nu-jazz combo…
View More Colin Edwin & Lorenzo Feliciati – Twinscapes
Camden Jazz Café, London 30th April 2014 A warm late spring day in the capital greeted the intrepid gig goers as we alighted at Euston station. A Tube strike was also waiting for us but it had little effect on…
View More Soft Machine Legacy
Seemingly positioning himself furthest from the Led Zeppelin spotlight back in the day, John Paul Jones is proof of the old adage “watch out for the quiet ones”. In those confused daze John Paul Jones was always the most musically…
View More Minibus Pimps – Cloud To Ground
Previously a quintet featuring keyboards and sax, now a trio, Xavi Reija’s band does things a drums/bass/guitar line up should not be able to, creating splendidly intuitive avant jazz rock suites that do not suffer the loss of those aforementioned…
View More Xavi Reija – Resolution
You can’t make an album based around the Warr guitar without it sounding like the last incarnation of King Crimson, can you? Well, not necessarily, as this fine release proves. Spoke of Shadows is Herd of Instinct Warr guitarist Mike…
View More Spoke of Shadows – Spoke of Shadows
Languishing in my pile of “to do” CDs since the turn of the year Field Day Rituals, the fourth album by Norwegian trio Splashgirl, released in February last year is a little outside my usual remit of left field and…
View More Splashgirl – Field Day Rituals
Messenger are a multi-national troupe who came together in London in 2012. Led by guitarists and vocalists Khaled Lowe and Barnaby Maddick, they hooked up with producer Jaime Gomez Arellano, who has worked with Ulver amongst many others, and shut…
View More Messenger – Illusory Blues