London Brew

Rating: ★★★

Record and Artist Details

Musicians:

Theon Cross (tba)
Nick Ramm (p, syn)
Tom Skinner (d, perc)
Nubya Garcia (saxes, woodwinds)
Shabaka Hutchings (saxes, woodwinds)
Nikolaj Torp Larsen (p, syn)
Tom Herbert (el b)
Dave Okumu (el g)
Martin Terefe (el g, elec)
Benji B (decks, ‘sonic re-cycling’)
Raven Bush (vn, elec)
Dan See (d, perc)

Label:

Concord Jazz 7245869/74

April/2023

Media Format:

2 CD, 2LP, DL

RecordDate:

Rec. date not stated

This project was put together by Martin Terefe and Bruce Lampcov, a pair of front-rank rock music producers, as an explicit tribute to Miles’ electric experiments of the 1970s. The template is copied directly from the Dark Prince's influential run of Columbia releases: long, loosely structured one-chord jams with the emphasis on rhythm and texture, lots of frenetic blowing and a generally dark, intense atmosphere.

It's interesting to hear a distillation of exactly what makes those records so appealing to the current generation of players, and what new elements they’ve felt it appropriate to add. So the two-part title track comes complete with Shabaka Hutching's rich-toned bass clarinet and plentiful tinkling Fender Rhodes, but adds in fistfuls of extra electronic effects, while guitarist David Okumu passes on the McLaughlin-style shred in favour of textural explorations that sound hipper to contemporary ears. Highlights include a duet between Hutchings and Nubya Garcia on ‘Nu Sha Ni Sha Nu Oss Ra’ that develops the everyone-jamming-full-pelt-all-at-once musical concept into a new, more considered direction, and an effervescent clarinet solo on ‘It's One Of These’ reminds us what a uniquely versatile player Shabaka Hutchings is.

Raven Bush has an eponymously titled feature for his violin that contains gorgeous moments: elsewhere, twin drummers See and Skinner pound away, Herbert and Cross rumble ominously, and the tracks wind their way though forests of sound with occasional glades of stillness.

It's easy to forget that Miles’ now-canonical original experiments weren't universally well received at the time: with due respect to the quality of the players involved, your reaction to this new iteration may depend on your threshold of tolerance for extended retro wig-outs.

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