GAVIN HARRISON

Sanity & Gravity: 25th Anniversary Remaster KSCOPE

Superstar drummer’s solo debut gets its time in the spotlight.

Prior to the release of his debut solo album in 1997, Gavin Harrison had been an in-demand session player for over a decade. Adopting an experimental and exploratory approach to both the compositions and his drums, Sanity & Gravity saw Harrison joined by some of the musicians he’d worked with, including Jakko Jakszyk, Mick Karn and both Richard Barbieri and Dave Stewart on additional keyboards.

Sitting squarely in jazz-fusion territory with a pinch of African and South American influences, this isn’t an album of drum solos and self-aggrandising showmanship. There are definite tunes, melodies and rhythms, yet these are framed in ways that explore textures, sounds and space; that toy with accents and emphasis; that present us with a mixture of the oddest of odd-time signatures, inscrutable syncopation and/ or no over-arching limiting form at all.

Aim has possibly the longest section of traditional drum groove playing here, during the section where the band first kick in, which could have been lifted from any of Bruford’s (the band) three late 70s albums. On one level it’s playful yet highly sophisticated jazz-funk, yet it takes a few unexpected twists and turns showcasing Harrison’s almost supernatural ability with metric modulations and beat displacement.

Harrison’s creative process for the album partly involved him recording “squiggles” at the drums for minutes at a time, on top of which keyboard player and main collaborator Gary Sanctuary would compose, resulting in tracks like On A Wave Of Positivity. Featuring a distinctly Latin-infused languid melody, the moves into sections that feel as if the music might fall apart at any moment but never does. On bass, Mick Karn does some truly outstanding work – on Dog Day, he’s bubbling, popping and sliding all over the place on a tune developed from an improvised jam, while his sensitive bass lines Witness (For Bobby) act as mellifluous glue to the subtle layers intertwining around him.

Despite being Harrison’s album, it’s not all about him, as evinced by Sonata In H, a beautiful, elegiac piano-based tune with Harrison’s playing a gloriously eccentric minimum. Dave Stewart also receives a major spotlight in Big News For A Small Day where the drums and his piano weave in and out of each other beguilingly.

Long unavailable on physical media, this 25th anniversary edition has been remastered, given new artwork and includes a bonus track, Iron Horse – a slice of bright mid-paced funkiness. It’s an album of considered, involving, intriguing and virtuosic music, often delivered in unexpected ways.

THIS ISN’T AN ALBUM OF DRUM SOLOS AND SELFAGGRANDISEMENT.