A trio of legendary Canterbury, avant improvisation and contemporary compositional players come together for an album recorded live in the studio over two days, from Alex Maguire on piano and Hammond organ, Martin Pyne on vibraphone, drums, percussion & electronics, and Mark Hewins on guitars & electronics; inventive, sophisticated, hallucinatory & virtuosic work.
Format: CD Condition: New Released: 2019 Country: UK Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold 3 Panels Recorded at Playback Studio in Margate, UK, on August 15th, 2018, and at TallGuy Studio, in Egham, UK, on August 16th, 2018.
"MPH is a trio featuring three of the most creative musical minds on the improv scene today. Their music draws from a huge range of genres to create bewitching and astonishingly original sound pictures, shot through with vitality, tenderness and humour. Taxonomies is the trio's debut album, taking inspiration from a quirky perspective on the natural world. PH came together in 2018 at the suggestion of Alex Maguire, who had worked with Mark Hewins and Martin Pyne individually. The trio plays completely improvised music. All three musicians have diverse musical interests and a wealth of experience, and this results in music with a gloriously wide frame of reference: their playing can be by turns playful, ethereal, earthy, abrasive, delicate and lyrical. Listeners will hear influences from many sources, ranging from the blues to the jazz abstractions of Jimmy Giuffre and the prepared piano sounds of John Cage.
This album was recorded live over two days. The first was on 15/08/18 at Playback Studio in Margate where Alex played Hammond Organ, Mark digital slide guitar and electronics, and Martin moved between vibraphone with electronics, drums, and a spot of processed Wave Drum. The second track on the album, "False Jasmine", was actually the first piece the group played together. The second day was at TallGuy Studio, Egham on 16/08/18. Alex switched to acoustic piano, while Mark used a big fat jazz guitar, again with electronics on a few pieces, and Martin played acoustic vibraphone, with and without preparations, and some small percussion.
The titles are inspired by the wonderfully evocative traditional names for various flora and fauna, suggestive of timeless narratives, characters, landscapes and mindscapes."-Discus
"MPH came together in 2018 at the suggestion of Alex Maguire, who had previously worked separately with both Martin Pyne and Mark Hewins. Given their varied backgrounds in jazz, free improvisation, rock and classical musics, dance and theatre, it is no surprise that the three have performed a music here that is gloriously eclectic and wide-ranging in its references, by turns playful, ethereal, abrasive, earthy, delicate and lyrical.
What is surprising, however, is that the entire set is totally improvised. I say surprising, not because the musicians are not themselves fine improvisers, but that the music sounds almost through composed in places, or at least structurally organised. There is a solid logic to each piece, the wooden percussion of Pyne on the opening Tormentil, for example, shuffling out a rhythm over which Maguire plays a delightfully engaging melody set off by Hewins's Latin guitar, together sounding as if this was a piece into which they had put considerable thought beforehand. Likewise, the intertwining of vibes, piano and guitar on Finger Muscle suggests prior organisation. But not so, if they are to be believed.
Interestingly, the first day's music, with Maguire on organ sounding more like Sun Ra than anyone else, is looser and more evidently improvised, but again still has a form about it that suggests pre-thought. That tension between free improvisation in the studios and harmonic and rhythmic coherence on the finished CD is what gives this set its power, and its great appeal.
By the way, all the track titles are, in their words, "inspired by the wonderfully evocative traditional names for various flora and fauna, suggestive of timeless narratives, characters, landscapes and mindscapes." Evocative, that's the best word to describe this set."-Simon Adams, Jazz Journal