It’s rare that an album puts its billy big boots on and, from the first
chord demands to be given serious consideration for the album of the year slot,
especially in April! Winds of Hope
opens with crashing chords from Simcock, thumping drums and a sinuous soprano line
from Garland. It’s a high energy statement of intent as the Lighthouse Trio
come storming back after several years’ absence. The Britten Sinfonia’s strings
fill in any spaces to complete the wall of sound. Everyone plays with a
forceful drive and the knotty lines become impossible to untangle.
Trails starts equally boldly and brightly before Garland constructs an intense
questioning solo which builds in power with more heavy duty pianism cutting
across his lines. Sirkis is lighter but furious on the drums.
Third track, No Horizons, feels
like the first moment on the album where the players’ individuality starts to
come through. They follow separate lines, with Simcock venturing further right
up the piano into a series of fine runs and Sirkis doing his own thing before
they come together and you realise it’s not a competition but a relay through a
series of sharp exchanges with the metaphorical baton rapidly changing hands.
This is rich, challenging music, though the musicians are challenging each
other more than the listener. The
Impossible Self picks up the drive and energy from earlier. It opens with
crashing drums and more heavy piano chording; Garland wails and shrieks above
the rhythmic melee. He has to if he wants to be heard. No prisoners are taken. Three
and a half packed minutes! It has the feel of a post pandemic ‘casting off the
shackles’ recording, but in fact the Lighthouse Trio tracks were laid down as
recently as September 2023.
Sub Vita is more contemplative, its languid pace allows Garland to
float a lovely tenor solo, intricately interwoven with Yazz Ahmed’s flugelhorn,
over the top. There is no respite, however from the energy of the rhythm
section, both piano and drums are pushing him along. Simcock takes us through a lovely flowing solo before
Garland’s moans announce his return. Again Ahmed adds layers of colouring as
the tune plays out.
Moment of Departure opens
with a cry in the dark and a full landscape of strings, playing against the
frantic fury of Serkis’s pounding drums; Garland’s soprano is hidden in the
strings which push Sirkis all the way until Simcock takes over with a flowing,
elegant solo which is frequently inundated and released by the strings so that
his piano comes to dominate. It’s impossible to tell how much of this Trio music
is pre-composed and how much is improvised but Garland’s arrangements for the
strings and the way in which they work with the Trio is exemplary.
The
brief, autumnal bass clarinet piece, Moment
of Arrival, closes the first disc and relax……..
Most of disc 2 is given
over to The Forever Seed Suite but
before that we get Approaching Winter, a
broad shouldered, muscular brother to Vivaldi’s Winter from The Four Seasons
on which the piece is based. Vivaldi’s well known dancing strings are swamped
by heavyweight drumming, dancing, declamatory sax and a torrent from the
Britten Sinfonia. Again, the boldness of the arrangements is stunning. Vivaldi
manages to escape occasionally and there are sections of the elegance for which
his piece is known but there is always something of greater weight lurking in
the background until it all falls away and Simcock takes us forward with a
charging solo that Sirkis follows closely.
The
Forever Seed is a Suite in five parts inspired by the
pivotal moments as the seasons change. It is through written and conducted by
Garland who doesn’t play on it. The sleeve notes tell us that “Fruit references spring into summer, Made Beautiful summer to autumn, Harbinger autumn into winter and Nascency, winter into spring….Praise is a humble acknowledgement of
our human place in all this…..”
Having this guidance to
hand helps to see Garland’s success in evoking these transitions. Fruit is rich with optimism as a single
violin conjures up an image of a single root winding its way up through the
soil. Made Beautiful opens with a
solo from Simcock that leads into a long elegant passage before the strings
awaken. It develops the optimism of the first piece; a brief darker passage is
soon overwhelmed by the hope of spring into summer. A different mood blows in
for Harbinger. Simcock opens down in deeper
tones; pizzicato strings try to lift the humour but fail. Nascency is characterised by melancholy in its opening passage but
a thread of hope slowly manifests itself and grows in strength. Praise opens with spare piano and a fragile solo violin as if to show
humanity’s insignificance but again it develops as if to suggest that,
insignificant as we may be, we still have a place in the seasons as they roll
through the years.
This is a fully realised
suite that works on its own terms. It probably belongs more in the classical
canon but, what the hell. It is fine writing and Simcock’s contributions are
significant and definitely jazz.
No comments :
Post a Comment