JAZZ TRACK

This month, Sid Smith brings us some jazz from the left field, with albums from Samuel Hallkvist, Kit Downes, Martin Archer, Asaf Sirkis and Sylwia Bialis, Lumen Drones and Julia Hulsmann.

DECORUM Samuel Hällkvist [Bandcamp)

Samuel Hällkvist’s Dekorum is a side project of the Swedish guitarist best known for his work in Isildurs Bane. It features Danish guitarist Stephan Sieben, Danish/Norwegian drummer Knut Finsrud and Malmö-based bassist Anne Marte Eggen. Tracing a line from King Crimson’s Discipline and the likes of Sonar, this rocking quartet add pointillistic rhythmic interplay to huge surging waves of drama from the other guitar, bass, and drums, across which Hällkvist’s guitar surfs and weaves. The seven pieces highlight Hällkvist’s talents as the band moves through free jazz, fusion, and art rock with the multilayered rhythmic patterns constantly evolving. Filled with knotty musical dialogue, it’s also blessed with big themes and a chiming internal alchemy that makes for compulsive listening.

OUR NEW EARTH Sirkis/Bialas IQ [Bandcamp]

This album is a rich and satisfying collection propelled by drummer Asaf Sirkis leading a keyboards and bass trio to which he’s added Polish-born vocalist Sylwia

Bialas. The delicate beauty of the ballad Chiaroscuro particularly impresses long after the tour of prog and folk-tinged influences is concluded. If you’re wondering about the ‘IQ’ bit, when this band was first formed in 2014 it was known as the The Sirkis/Bialas International Quartet… ‘International’ because Sirkis is an Israeli living in England; Sylwia Bialas although Polish lives in Germany; and of the two remaining musicians, Frank Harrison (keyboards) is British; and Scot Kevin (six string electric bass) is a Scot. Bialis is a truly creative vocalist, whether she’s overdubbing harmonies (Reminiscence) or demonstrating her abilities at overtone singing (Rooting). Whereas their first album (‘Come To Me’) played along fairly standard contemporary jazz lines, this one moves towards an altogether more ‘world music’ direction.

UMBRA Lumen Drones [Hubro]

Compared to their 2014 self-titled ECM debut, Lumen Drones’ Umbra initially seems a more reflective affair. Yet very quickly Nils Økland’s amped-up hardanger fiddle locks into the choppy, motorik grooves of Per Stainar Lie’s mesmeric guitar and Ørjan Haaland’s insistent drumming. The folkish instrumental roots frequently transmogrify into something that veers into the Conrad/Young school of trance inducing sonic experimentation and a cathartic space rock whose sound is visceral and vital. I just had to love that although most of the track titles are impenetrable to anyone who isn’t Norwegian— Inngang, Glør, Droneslag, and Gorrlaus slått to name just four of the nine, track 6 stands out beautifully ( Avalanche in A minor). But you don’t have to be Norwegian to appreciate that Lumen Drones has its own unique voice—or should that be voices, because Umbra shifts between solo violins to driving rock to heavy dirge. You really haven’t heard anything like them. And that’s a good thing. There’s too much “me too” out there already.

KIT DOWNES Dreamlife of Debris [ECM]

Dreamlife haunts some of the sacred spaces from Downe’s previous album, but whereas that album was essentially a single church organ, Dreamlife adds some of Downe’s favourite musical collaborators including saxophonist Tom Challenger, cellist Lucy Railton, and drummer Seb Rochford, plus guitarist Stian Westerhus. Says Downes: “I was interested to see how bringing in different people would change the direction of the recording.” You can hear for yourself that it went well. Entwined around his undulating piano or the radiant strains of church organ, tenor sax, cello, the shimmering rhyme of Stian Westerhus’ guitar and the occasional percussion all variously offer close-quarter, intimate responses to Downes’ impressionistic harmonic clusters.

MARTIN ARCHER Anthropology Band [Discus]

Although he achieved recognition as a part of Hornweb, Martin Archer has more or less stopped playing live in favour of honing his talents in the studio, during which time he’s ended up playing postbop jazz, after experimenting with both classical and electronica, and paying homage to earlier musicians and musical styles. (He did, however, make a celebrated live appearance at the Liverpool Jazz Festival 2020 with his band, with their performances rated by many critics as one of the highlight acts of the Festival.) Although Anthropology Band readily acknowledges its debt to electric-era Miles as its starting point, it quickly hurtles off into its own distinctive space. Chris Sharkey’s vivid, blazing guitar adds a fevered counterpoint to Archer’s sinuous brass themes which frame much of this two-CD set. Gong bassist Dave Sturt brings notable definition, the second disc adding a larger brass and wind ensemble, which is interesting but lacks the lithe clarity of Disc One’s septet.

NOT FAR FROM HERE Julia Hülsmann Quartet [ECM]

Outstanding German pianist/composer Julia Hülsmann’s gasp-inducing command of light and dark with her regular trio now has the added firepower of tenor saxist

Uli Kempendorff, both as a player and as a composer, which on this album deepen an inquisitive impulse that traverses jazzy abstraction and includes two scintillating, percolating versions of David Bowie’s This Is Not America. Born in Bonn in 1968, Hülsmann took classical piano lessons from the age of eleven and started her first band at 16. In 1991, she moved to Berlin to study jazz piano at the University of the Arts and the following year joined the German Youth Jazz Orchestra. Since 1997 Hülsmann has worked with her own trio, playing at clubs and festivals all over Germany. Not Far From Here finds her and her musical collaborators Marc Muellbauer (bass) and Heinrich Köbberling (drums) in fine form, for me most evidently on Hülsmann’s own compositions, in particular the curiously and completely mis-named opener, The Art of Failing. Sid Smith