Bone-afide
Doyen Recordings: DOY CD456
The award-winning Bone-afide trombone quartet continues to build a creatively defined reputation as an ensemble of inventiveness and versatility.
For this, their third CD, they link-up with a trio of equally imaginative composers, each renowned for their arresting explorations – Dani Howard, Callum Au and Gavin Higgins.
Lucid musicality
Individually as well as collectively it’s packed with concise, lucid musicality for a release of meaningful contemporary expressionism and virtuosity (expertly recorded); the balances and phrasing proportioned and layered, the sound palette remarkably textured, from oily density to tender transparency.
Dani Howard’s title track is a happy memory of youth and the timeless hours spent on a basketball court, both alone and with a small group of friends.
It’s the ball though that is the focus of attention, the rhythmic patterns of its rubbery motion a metronomic meditation governed by the laws of physics
It’s the ball though that is the focus of attention, the rhythmic patterns of its rubbery motion a metronomic meditation governed by the laws of physics – from ricocheting angles to the dissipating energy of its final bounce to stillness.
Wit and appreciation
Callum Au meanwhile provides personal portraits of piquant style and personality. ‘Four Dances’ is framed with wit as well as appreciation, as if inviting the quartet to take to the floor with their signature moves at his own late-night party.
‘Low Down’ offers Simon Minshall the opportunity to display a deep throated punchy jazz swagger, whilst ‘Sentimental Gentleman’ is a lyrical nod by Robert Moseley to the swing ballad playing of Tommy Dorsey.
‘Kind of Blue Danube’ has the echo of a sensual night club waltz, as if Merin Rhyd has just tiptoed out of Ronnie Scott’s at half past four in the morning only to meet Isobel Daws still full of fiery vitality and ready to party with ‘Trombalera’.
‘Kind of Blue Danube’ has the echo of a sensual night club waltz, as if Merin Rhyd has just tiptoed out of Ronnie Scott’s at half past four in the morning only to meet Isobel Daws still full of fiery vitality and ready to party with ‘Trombalera’. It’s all sharply observed and performed.
Self expressionist mood
Personal reflections of self expressionist mood are more deeply embedded in ‘Black Sun’ by Gavin Higgins – the composer’s response to the works of artists Olafu Eliasson, Claude Monet, J.M.W Turner and Damien Hirst.
Higgins mixes his own sound palette with an intoxicating fusion of colour and texture – ‘Yellow Sun’ a blazing orb of fanfare intensity that like Eliasson’s monumental ‘The Weather Project’ installation at the Tate Modern in 2003, bakes the senses.
Instead, a swarming mass of sound draws you into Damien Hirst’s disc made up of thousands of dead flies, that like many of his works reflects on mortality and decay, the sun in this instance no longer the celestial furnace to sustain life.
The playful arpeggios of ‘Orange Sun’ capture the bobbling reflections of Monet’s early morning seascape over the harbour in Le Harve, whilst the impressionistic ‘Red Sun’ calm of Turner still glows warm even as the dying ember sets in the sky.
No reflection however is seen in ‘Black Sun’.
Instead, a swarming mass of sound draws you into Damien Hirst’s disc made up of thousands of dead flies, that like many of his works reflects on mortality and decay, the sun in this instance no longer the celestial furnace to sustain life.
Iwan Fox
To purchase:
CD: https://www.worldofbrass.com/102463
Download: https://www.worldofbrass.com/102463-download
Wobplay: http://www.wobplay.com
Play list:
1. Bounce (Dani Howard)
2-5. Four Dances (Callum Au)
i. Low Down
ii. Sentimental Gentleman
iii. Kind of Blue Danube
iv. Trombalera
6-9. Black Sun (Gavin Higgins)
i. Yellow Sun
ii. Orange Sun
iii. Red Sun
iv. Black Sun
