Ledley (LP, DL) is the debut album from Raph Clarkson (trombone, FX), Chris Williams (saxophone, FX), and Riaan Vosloo (electronics, post-production) to be released on Fri 4th April via Impossible Ark Records.
The album is devoted to the legendary Spurs footballer, Ledley King, blending improvised electroacoustic music and sport as a sign of friendship and shared passions.
As to the music, the album consists of nicely original material hovering around somewhere between avantgard jazz and electronic soundscaping, sax and trombone freely improvising, communicating with each other, blending melody and harmony. No doubt one can hear, without difficulty, echoes (eg. deep space) of the Norwegian Biosphere (Geir Aule Jenssen) and Jan Garbarek’s saxophone playing, Riaan Vosloo creating experimental soundscapes and textures by adding electronics and real-time production, mixing up mental landscapes of Norwegian coastal fjords and street of Tottenham.
What I (as an outsider) find particularly rewarding in their improvised playing is that it’s not just free rejoicing, it’s not arbitrary, inconsistent or intentionally dissonant, but instead highly coherent and carefully thought out, even somehow systematic, exactly as it should be. As to the sound or rather the gestalt of the sound, the music is easy to chew for those who adopt the idiom, but more importantly, the album sounds such that even those who’re not accustomed to the sonic world of free jazz, can enjoy it wholeheartedly.
Ledley is an unconventional album of improvised electroacoustic music that is easy to get carried away by.
From press info:
“Side A’s pieces segue naturally into one another, commencing with “Better Than” in which LEDLEY seem to evolve into being, birth themselves, emerge slowly from their own womb, an altogether new musical creature. Flurries of alto, oblique drones, obscure scrapings and scurryings abound; by “F.O.B.T.W. part 2,” there’s a low end counterpoint of terse, rhythmical trombone rasps, a quite singular use of the instrument, as alto phrases circulate, illuminate the dark mix. “The King” salutes its subject in the manner of a New Orleans funeral march, or Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra , dank, solemn sweeps of trailing brass. “Away Days” (only the most dedicated fans watch their team home and away) is a darkly beautiful tribute to the stoicism of the football supporter, whose lot is mostly frustration, disappointment, compulsively revisited week in, week out, plumbing the sublime with its long, looming horn motifs.”
Credits
Raph Clarkson – trombone & pedals/FX
Chris Williams – alto saxophone & pedals/FX
Riaan Vosloo – electronics and post-production
All music by Chris Williams, Raph Clarkson and Riaan Vosloo
impossiblearkrecords.bandcamp.com
