Cath Roberts

Jan 29 2020

Best of 2019 #24: Madwort’s Menagerie – “Madwort’s Menagerie”

 

Crossed lines at a big band rehearsal, compositions for saxophone quartet, and the mercurial prerogatives of a free improv duo are the components that brought a curious unity to the self-titled debut of Madwort’s Menagerie.  Tom Ward’s sextet with cornetist Alex Bonney, double bassist Tim Fairhall, flutist Julie Kjær, baritone saxophonist Cath Roberts, cellist Adam Spiers added to Ward’s own bass clarinet are responsible for a curious beauty, where melodies have the ephemeral quality of dreams and harmonies like their lingering aftereffect upon waking, slowly and greeted by soft daylight, and the motion of the music is fitful and anxious, as if children unable to sit still in church pews during a morning service.

Your album personnel:  Alex Bonney (cornet), Tim Fairhall (double bass), Julie Kjær (flutes), Cath Roberts (baritone sax), Adam Spiers (cello), and Tom Ward (bass clarinet).

Released on Madwort Records.

Listen to more of the album at the artist’s Bandcamp page.

Music from London, England.

Available at:  Bandcamp

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Jan 7 2019

Best of 2018 #32: Anton Hunter – “Article XI”

 

There’s always the sense of a massive vision to this album, and it’s how Anton Hunter keeps the focus on the microcosm of the moment that cinches this recording as something special.  In my original write-up, I state that traversing this album is like a journey through the funhouse.  And while its lyricism, often absurd and capable of inciting tiny epiphanies, often does command center stage, the benefit of time slowly reveals that it’s the competing, complementary perspectives that is the true driving force… like watching simultaneous evolutions of worlds inside of worlds.

Released on Efpi Records.

Read more on Bird is the Worm.

Music from Manchester, UK.

Available at:  Bandcamp | Amazon

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