FOOD
Quiet Inlet
2734919
ECM Records 2010
07 Tracks. 46mins58secs

Amazon UK: CD iTunes: DLD

Formed around the nucleus of British saxophonist Iain Ballamy and Norwegian drummer and percussionist extraordinaire Thomas Strønen, Food once also counted trumpet player Arve Henriksen and bass player Mats Eilertsen as permanent members. The quartet debuted over twelve years ago when Ballamy joined the three Norwegian musicians for a one-off performance on stage. A self-titled album, then a second, Organic & GM Food, two years on, followed, both published on Ballamy’s short-lived Feral Records, before the quartet moved to Rune Grammofon, where they released two more albums, Veggie (2002) and Last Supper (2004), before both Henriksen and Eilertsen left, leaving Ballamy and Strønen sole in charge for the 2006 album Molecular Gastronomy. The pair regularly perform with additional contributors, and it is two of these occasions that have been captured for Quiet Inlet, Food’s sixth album, and their first for ECM.

Built around live recordings made at Oslo’s legendary Blå club in 2007 and at the Molde Festival in 2008, Quiet Inlet sees Food joined by Austrian experimental guitarist Christian Fennesz and Norwegian trumpet player Nils Petter Molvær, the former contributing to three tracks (Tobiko, Mictyris and Fathom), the latter to four (Chimaera, Becalmed, Cirrina and Dweller). Like with every Food release until now, Quiet Inlet is a highly textural and atmospheric record, focussed primarily on Strønen’s exquisite percussive displays and gentle electronics, which serves as a stunning backdrop for Ballamy’s evocative melodic motifs, in turn on tenor and soprano sax.

It is perhaps Molvær’s contribution which is most immediately apparent here as he weaves his own improvisations around Ballamy’s, evoking for a moment Food of years past as the warm glow of the trumpet circles around the softer sound of the soprano sax on Chimaera and Cirrina. On the introspective Becalmed, the pair enter into a fascinating dialogue, both players stepping out in turn at first, then echoing each other’s lines in the second half of the piece. Fennesz remains a more discreet presence on the three tracks he is featured on, his often visceral live noise processing kept well under wrapped here as he favours instead discreet brushes of treated guitars on Mictyris and Fathom, creating wonderfully ethereal moments, especially on the latter, and adds fragments of gritty electronics on album opener Tobiko, which is swept by a powerful wind in its later part, growing increasingly cold and piercing as Strønen’s drumming becomes more defined and assertive.

This ECM debut finds Food in fine form, Ballamy and Strønen effortlessly continuing to reinvent their sound while retaining the principles that have, until now, served them well. Strønen does here what he does best, providing the backbone for these improvisations to flourish, with Fennesz adding some interesting textures to the duo’s natural environment, and it is a pleasure to hear Iain Ballamy once again battling it out with a trumpet player, and he finds in Nils Petter Molvær an inspired companion.

4.8/5

Iain Ballamy | Iain Ballamy (MySpace) | Thomas Strønen | Thomas Strønen (MySpace) | ECM Records
Amazon UK: CD iTunes: DLD

Pete Judge and Paul Wigens form Eyebrow, a trumpet and drums duo which is found somewhere on the cool headed side of jazz. With pretty impressive CVs under their respective belts, each having performed alongside the likes of Super Furry Animal, Cousteau or Natasha Atlas, the pair were first to take the stage at the Union Chapel this rainy November evening. In the twenty minutes or so of their set, Eyebrow created a rather impressive series of jazz-infused tracks. Judge, on trumpet, assisted by a delay pedal borrowed from Vladislav Delay, and a few effects, provided the melodic structure, often in light floating strips, over Wigens rather delicate drumming. With just enough time to perform five pieces, the pair concluded with a piece, apparently taking its name from a location situation below Leeds station, which saw them push up the rhythmic aspect of their performance for a moment before retiring all too quickly.

A man with fingers in many pies, Finnish musician Sasu Ripatti delivered quite an usual record as Vladislav Delay this year, swapping the heavily diffuse electronics of previous records for a more stripped down sound. On Tummaa, Ripatti was found on drums and percussions, while additional contributors Lucio Capece and Craig Armstrong brought a very different dimension to his sound. Performing as a duo with Capece, this set found its ground closer to traditional Delay territory, with Sasu Ripatti on electronics, having, for practical reason perhaps, abandoned the drums, and  Capece on pretty much anything else, predominently a saxophone and a bass clarinet from which he extracted a surprisingly extensive range of sounds. Partly assembling textures from Capece’s continued input, at times torturing them into impressive delays, at other processing them as part of the fabric of the music, and dressing them with rumbling echoey beats, Ripatti was, in most parts, dominating, yet the partly improvised nature of the set left things pretty open for the pair to weave sounds and noises into characteristically spacious atmospheric pieces.

Despite seemingly working each on their side, with very little visual communication, it was occasionally difficult to know exactly where Capece’s input ended and Ripatti’s processing started, so intricately fitted were the raw and processed. At times, a particular sound would appear to come from Capece, yet it would continue long after he had moved on to other devices, occasionally mutating into something entirely new or left to slowly decay in the background. It was as if the sound sources fed to Ripatti were taking a life of their own, bouncing against or colliding with predefined electronic components and piano textures.

While there was clear demarcations between tracks, the set was performed in one stretched, with no breaks in between pieces, and if there were occasionally echoes of Tummaa, the pair’s performance appeared overall improvised. Not quite what one would expect of a Vladislav Delay solo performance, yet not framing Tummaa‘s exquisite textures, this was yet another persona that inhabited Ripatti this evening.

British jazz saxophist Iain Ballamy is one of these musicians who can as easily slip into the cosy outlines of smooth jazz as step into deeply atmospheric experimental improvisations. At the helm of Food, originally a quartet he formed over ten years ago with drummer Thomas Strønen, trumpetist Arve Henriksen and bassist Mats Eilertsen, Ballamy has produced five albums, two published on his own Feral Records, three on Rune Grammofon. In recent years, Food has become a duo following the departure of both Henriksen and Eilertsen, Ballamy on sax and Strønen on drums, percussions and electronics.

Sole on stage for the first segment of this set, Strønen  laid some delicate rhytmic forms, tinted with gamelan undertones, progressively building a sequence solid enough for Ballamy to come in and dispense soothing fluid sax drapes without drowning the drums. In this particular formation, the dynamic between the two musicians changed throughout in very organic fashion. Often, Ballamy appeared to lead the way early on in a piece, working warm enveloping melodies, some layered, delayed and distorted by Strønen as he provided delicate percussive counterpoints, making extensive use of his panoply of drums, bells, cymbals and other percussive instruments, but at one point or another, it was he who was taking the lead by suddenly switching into much sturdier rhythmic patterns or increasing the intensity of his game, Ballamy retreating, feeding on the trance or applying delicate brushes.

Toward the end of the set, Food expanded to a three piece formation when the pair were joined on stage by guitarist Mark Wingfield, who added guitar fragments which he processed on a laptop. Or at least that was the impression as there was very little evidence of these at sound level. At one point, while Strønen was deep in a rich and maddeningly driven groove, Ballamy retired to the back for a moment, leaving Wingfield to occupy the space, but even this didn’t quite work, and, with the curfew just gone, it was time for the band to bid the audience good night.

Iain Ballamy/Food | Vladislav Delay | Eyebrow (MySpace) | Rune Grammofon | The Leaf Label