If,
like me you find it difficult to exhume any enthusiasm for accordions from
beneath a well calcified boulder of prejudice, you will approach this album
with some trepidation. However, about half way through the first listen you
will begin to understand why Wesley Stephenson, who is Mr NEWJAiM, was so keen
to record this duo. We’ll park the usual questions about what genres it might
fall into and let our ears do the thinking for us. I don’t think that we’re in
the presence of greatness, but loveliness is definitely in the house.
And, speaking of genres, Triangles brings us shades of Indian classical music, European and American folk and contemporary jazz. It’s a blend that works and anyone fearing some abrupt changes of direction as one piece finishes and another takes us in a different direction will find nothing to worry about here.
The focused palette of just
the two instruments (albeit both musicians bring more than one of each to the
session) allows for more space and more chance to hear what each is doing.
Having said that, musically, they are often so closely wrapped round each other
that the blend becomes one voice. At other times, and in common with the best
improvised music, one line by one partner is the foundation for the other to
rise and explore possibilities of their own devising.
Opener, Carnatic Stream, hits that spot where folk music hits Indian classical music with Moore adding the most colour. Brickyard Joe leaves such intellectualising behind and is just a roistering hoedown with some steam train accordion playing and Moore’s joyful flourishes. The intensity ratchets up for the title track, melancholic gypsy jazz allows Moore to take us on what feels like a very personal ‘journey’. It’s the blues, Jim, but not as we know it. Fairhall’s Adder in the Gorse Bush sounds too cheerful for such an encounter, it’s evocation of open space suggests that the encounter was a brief one (as it usually would be with an adder).
For me, the next track Darlin’ Cora, is the loveliest thing on the album; rich, warm and evocative, full of blues and yearning. It’s one step along the cheerfulness spectrum from an Irish lament. Madhukauns Blue, is wonderfully intricate as the violin wraps itself ecstatically around the accordion line (not a phrase I expected to write). It’s absolutely mesmerising, riveting stuff that has you on the edge of your seat as the violin line rises and falls both anchored to and soaring in escape from the solidity of Fairhall’s accordion.
The Song of the
Swan escapes half way through from a lament to a high stepping folk dance,
a call to joy; warm and very human. Fairhall pumps out a simple rhythm line and
takes the opportunity to add some swing and colour of his own with some short
phrases whilst still providing the support for Moore to take on the role of
lifting everybody’s spirits. Closer, Maggie
Meade, runs through a number of variations from swinging Irish folk to a
bit of music hall and even something that suggests the music of Indigenous
Americans from a time preceding the European invasion before a high stepping
line takes us into something more motor powered and briskly almost urban.
There’s a lot in that 3 minutes.
There
you have it! A lot of mileage covered in two voices. Fairhall does most of the
heavy lifting and Moore provides most of the drama and excitement but the energy
and joy are created by both. Triangles is
available HERE
from the NEWJAiM Bandcamp page. Dave
Sayer
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