Mammal Hands: Shadow Work

Rating: ★★★

Record and Artist Details

Musicians:

Tom Moore (vn, vla)
Pete Yelding (clo)
Jesse Barrett (d, tabla)
Jordan Smart (s, effects)
Nick Smart (p, Fender Rhodes)

Label:

Gondwana

October/2017

Catalogue Number:

GONDCD021

RecordDate:

2017

Mammal Hands' faith in minimalism, and the similarly circling, mantric patterns of folk and dance music, remains unbroken. They lack labelmates GoGo Penguin's penchant for riff -based anthems, but both bands' place in a post-rave, post-Terry Riley school of British jazz is plainer on Mammal Hands' third. Honed by 18 months of regular road work, and self-producing for the first time, they've subtly expanded their arrangements, treating instruments and adding samples and strings. The benignly becalmed centre of ‘Black Sails’ contrasts with Jordan Smart's insistent, Sufi sax on ‘Boreal Forest’, the nearest song here to the new jazz-dance. ‘Living Frost’ displays their relative expansiveness best, with Nick Smart's throbbing piano pulse, brother Jordan's carefully remorseless, reedy sax ending in a high bird-cry, leisurely strings and percussive boom and clack (Jesse Barrett's tabla work is expressively nuanced throughout). Shadow Work's shape and effect is crucially enhanced, though, by two pieces lasting barely a minute: the ambient birdsong sample of ‘Being Here’, and the verité ‘Near/Far’, catching a muted, almost private piano improv. Mammal Hands' minimalist ethos can feel restrictive, but these small moments of grace add a natural, sacred quiet.

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