| Jazz |
Here is an album as we like them, urban, infused with world music and with a distinctive sound and a danceable beat, making this work unclassifiable. It is certainly one of the current trends in jazz that offers a similar energy to Trombone Shorty. Trumpeter Andy Watts, playing a unique long model cornet (designed and built by Leigh McKinney at Eclipse Trumpets) and exploring his interest in effects pedals, drew inspiration from his usual routine of improvising on a drone. He thus created a collection of affected cornet sounds to serve as compositional foundations.
It’s an album of the pandemic, a form of irrational introspection, as Australians have a knack for, whether in music, literature, or cinema. To understand this album, Andy Watts provides some explanations: “I have always been fascinated by 20th-century composers such as Steve Reich and John Cage, and the way they developed powerful compositions from elements that might seem insignificant at first. I tried to adopt a similar approach with this album, starting with samples of a digital Tanpura (an Indian drone instrument), then building small thematic blocks and developing them into something much larger.”
On this album, we find Filippo Galli on drums, Joe Edwards on guitar, and Ritchie Sweet on percussion, musicians who harmonize wonderfully, delving into endless sounds, sometimes perplexing, thought-provoking. I couldn’t help but be reminded of a film created by a jazz enthusiast, mainly Miles Davis’s “Dingo,” which had that kind of timeless sound, and it’s true that one gets carried away by Andy Watts’s music as in a film. He writes his music in a cinematic way, taking us through various settings and sensations. Undoubtedly, the forced imagination of the pandemic period also plays a part in it.
Using electronics like a sound sculptor, I dare not imagine the time spent refining the sequences. Only a true enthusiast can go this far. Striking guitar solos, Afrobeat-inspired drum rhythms, bebop, blues, and contemporary jazz-tinged melodies, as well as electronically manipulated textures, combine to tell the determined quest of an artist to fall in love with his art again.
This album is so different from the albums I currently receive that inevitably it caught my attention. Its only flaw is a somewhat repetitive aspect in the rhythms, which narrowly prevents it from reaching the top of our “essential” list. The editorial teams at Bayou Blue Radio and Paris-Move prefer to place it in the category of “Favorites.”
Thierry De Clemensat
USA correspondent – Paris-Move
Editor in chief Bayou Blue Radio, Bayou Blue News
PARIS-MOVE, January 24th 2024
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Line Up:
Andy Watts | Cornet, Effects, Bass, Drones, Composition, Production
Filippo Galli | Drums
Joe Edwards | Guitar (Track 1)
Richie Sweet | Percussion (Track 3)
Tracking List:
A Strange Beginning
An Unsure Thing
The Way Back From Here
Out Of Season
Exit Strategy
Working As Intended