Ant Law: The Sleeper Wakes
Author: Nick Hasted
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Musicians: |
Ant Law (g) |
Label: |
Edition |
Magazine Review Date: |
September/2020 |
Media Format: |
CD, DL |
RecordDate: |
date not stated |
Ant Law's fourth album as leader is unhurried and unmoved by fashion. Among his usual, strong quintet, Ivo Neame adds his own high-strung urgency whether comping or soloing on ‘Her Majesty’ (no relation to Paul McCartney's impish coda on The Beatles' Abbey Road). But ‘Our Church’ is more typically stately, allowing time to step gallery-like around the notes of its elegant melodic shape, which recalls Wayne Shorter's limpid Jazz Messengers reverie, ‘Sleeping Dancer Sleep On’. Michael Chillingworth's bass clarinet is organ-like here, adding odd, dolorous colour. The standard ‘My Old Flame’ is similarly ruminative and, like ‘Swan Song’, has a feel of folkish, cinematic Americana; on the latter, Ivo Neame's left hand blends with Law till the pianist steps out like Jimmy Stewart heading into a Western sunset. Law's early taste for Hendrix's searing blues-rock is hard to detect this far down a largely self-taught path, which now favours introspection over flash. On what is in many ways a conventional record not given to excitement, it's his compositions and their unexpected hinterlands which stand out.

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