This month: Trish Clowes
Trish Clowes’s latest album, A View with a Room, has further enhanced the enviable critical reputation of the English saxophonist. Her early career was boosted when she was selected as a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist in 2012. ‘It was an amazing opportunity,’ she says, ‘to have the chance to try out so much stuff. Because you are able to put things out there more regularly you can take more risks.’
Her work sometimes evokes Thelonious Monk and Wayne Shorter. Not that her music sounds like theirs, but her playing and composing share their beguiling quirky individuality and logic. ‘Wayne Shorter has been a massive influence since my late teens,’ she says. ‘Both Monk and Wayne improvise as composers and vice versa: there’s that real attention to detail in both areas and the language crosses over. Iain Ballamy has been a big influence and support too. They all have a really interesting approach to texture and sound. They’re not restricted by genres – they hear music any way they want to.’
For Clowes, the restrictions during the pandemic helped mature ideas that might otherwise have been sidelined: ‘Over the last couple of years there has been less distraction. There was more focus as there was comparatively little else going on.’ When it became possible to record the album, ‘everyone was really happy to be playing music, whether recording or live.’
She recently finished a tour with her band My Iris (‘It was amazing to have so many gigs. The restrictions make you cherish that so much more’) and is finalising a duo album with Ross Stanley, the band’s keyboard player. Another duo with cellist
Louise Mcmonagle, with whom she has also worked before, is on the cards. ‘I always try to write differently, not having the same starting point. I let things develop naturally, and I really respond to what band members are interested in. I’ve been writing for My Iris for a while and am loving that. You develop a language together.’ Barry Witherden
‘I respond to what band members are interested in – you develop together’