Latest releases reviewed
VARIOUS ARTISTS 13 Years Pomelo ****
Vienna isn't one of electronic music's world centres, but it does boast a small, inventive scene. Dig deeper than Kruder & Dorfmeister's lethargic wine bar beats and you'll find Pomelo, one of two main outlets for Vienna's electronic producers. Pomelo's releases combine an experimental outlook with a deep understanding of electronic music's roots, and this fusion prevails on its 13th birthday compilation. Horn's abrasive 70+df groove suddenly veers into an acid sequence borrowed from classic Chicago house. Spesimen's Angels in My Room approximates contemporary, glitchy techno tones with Detroit's timeless widescreen electro sound, while Hi Lo show Pomelo at its most adventurous: the loose funk rhythms and late-night jazzy riffs of Muros Transparentes and Sweat Without Smell tempered by the boom and hiss of the 808 drum machine. Seems 13 isn't always an unlucky number. www.pomelo.org RICHARD BROPHY
Download tracks: 70+df, Angels in My Room, Muros Transparentes, Sweat Without Smell
BOB FLORENCE Eternal Licks & Grooves MAMA *****
Veteran composer and arranger Bob Florence has done a series of high-calibre big band albums for the MAMA label, all firmly within the swinging tradition and all remarkably personal and inventive. This latest is probably his finest, so imaginatively scored and developed that Florence is effectively a long-form writer, perhaps the only one in this particular orchestral lineage. Both the title track (a Basie tribute) and Appearing in Cleveland (a homage to Kenton) are veritable fantasias that bear more the mark of Florence's creativity than anything else; neither source ever sounded quite like this. And when he addresses such works as Debussy's Claire de Lune and the standards, Invitation and I'm Old Fashioned, it amounts to re-composition. The orchestra is staggeringly good, too, with Peter Erskine superb on drums. www.mamajazz.org RAY COMISKEY
ANTONIO SANCHEZ Migration CamJazz ****
Drummer Antonio Sanchez leads a heavyweight quartet, with Chris Potter (tenor/soprano), David Sanchez (tenor) and Scott Colley (bass) for this impressive leader debut. With no piano to quote the harmonic alphabet, they make the most of the opportunities thus offered; their work has has an airy freedom without totally forsaking home base. Potter is especially gifted in this respect, but both he and David Sanchez benefit from the brilliantly mobile anchor - if that isn't a contradiction in terms - of Colley's bass, and the sensitivity and flexibility of the leader's drums. Adding further interest, pianist Chick Corea guests with bass and drums on one track, and guitarist Pat Metheny on two, one with the quartet, the other a duet with drums. But this quartet can stand up brilliantly for itself. http://uk.hmboutique.com RAY COMISKEY
ANDREAS SCHNERMANN Tell Me the Truth About Love Challenge ***
WH Auden's poems were so deftly varied, in form and subject matter, that anyone attempting to set
them to music is spoiled for choice. Pianist and composer Andreas Schnermann here focuses primarily, though not exclusively, on his wry, witty, knowing and deeply felt take on love. The results aren't completely successful - singer Inga Lühning's light voice is fine for the more playful side of Auden, but she doesn't do gravitas entirely persuasively, and some settings don't strike one as altogether apt. But the results have an odd way of growing on one, notably the famous Funeral Blues, Refugee Blues and the title track. Schnermann is a good pianist, with a composer's facility for melody, and his septet, with Matthias Bergmann (flugelhorn) and Paul Heller (tenor/clarinets), makes this a buoyant, surprisingly swinging album. www.musicconnection.org.uk RAY COMISKEY
