The Sound of Silence

Alice Zawadzki + Silence Blossoms, Freedom Principle at the Sand Bar, Manchester. Tuesday 20th November 2012

A milk frother is not generally known for its rhythmic properties. Nor have walkie-talkies established themselves as a means to simultaneously bow and amplify a double bass as far as I'm aware. Nevertheless, these were just two of the many innovative approaches to sound generation brought forth by Sweden and Macclesfield's 'Silence Blossoms'. Comprising Gus Loxbo on double bass, guitar, voice, frother and walkie-talkies; Hanna Olivegren on voice and synthesiser, and a repatriated (at least for now) Sam Andreae on tenor sax, voice and electronics, this curious trio take poetry as the basis of most of their pieces. The words are under-layered with various blends of folksy harmony, lo-fi white noise, environment textures and a little free jazz abstraction.

Silence Blossoms (photo by Angela Guyton)

There's a danger of novelty leading to boredom with this kind of approach, but Silence Blossoms steered well clear of this territory, delivering a more or less perfect blend of sweet harmony and art noise. The stuttering echoes and earthy folk tones of first track 'Lady White' led into 'Not Waving But Drowning', probably the most conventional piece of the set. There was some lovely soulful playing from Andreae on sax here, accompanied by Loxbo's warm rounded double bass and Olivegren's deep sparse vocal. Some wonderfully vulnerable vocal harmonies from Olivegren and Andreae on final track 'King of Everything' rounded things off perfectly. This really worked.

Silence Blossoms rehearsing (photo by Angela Guyton)

Now based in London but no stranger to Manchester's music scene, Alice Zawadzki once again delivered an engaging set in the city last night, this time in trio formation with Stuart McCallum on guitar and Rosie Toll on Cello. Zawadzki rarely fails to impress, not only with her extensive range of vocal styles and strong technique, but also the way she manages to convey an authenticity and intimacy through the styles that make her performances consistently captivating. Whether it's a sephardic song, a portuguese tune, a rootsy blues number or some folk whimsy, she puts everything over convincingly and with real passion.

Alice Zawadzki with Stuart McCallum and Rosie Toll

A highlight was the self-penned 'Ring of Fire'. The track begins with a really strong tune sung by Zawadzki that opens out to an instrumental section allowing McCallum's modulated echo reverbs plenty of sonic space to breath, all backed by Toll's strong and unfussy cello parts. It's not all that often I can hear the harmonic subtleties of McCallum's expansive layering, so many thanks to Zawadzki's relatively sparse line-up choice, the sound man and an attentive Sand Bar.  Another very memorable gig. Hat's off to Freedom-Principle @ Sandbar.

Zawadzki is playing again at the Manchester Jazz Festival Re-Live MJF 2012 this Friday at Matt and Phreds. Take your opportunites when you can.

Tea for Two

Mike Walker & Stuart McCallum, Freedom Principle at the Sand Bar, Manchester. Tuesday 16th October 2012

I finally made it down to one of the Freedom Principle jazz sessions at the Sandbar a few days ago for the first time in too long. The focus of this return was the unusual duo pairing of two local guitar aces, Mike Walker and Stuart McCallum.  Both players using only acoustic guitars added to the unusualness, albeit amplified and through various effects units. Walker generally played 'uneffected' but for a bit of reverb, McCallum taking on the job of producing soundscape echo loop backdrops for most pieces.

The first track set the tone, a Frisell interpretation that immediately reminded me of lush Nick Drake textures.  Dreamy open sounding chord arpeggios were the order of the day for many pieces, the players generally swapping arpeggio duties whilst the other improvised. There were a few more or less set pieces such as Walker's 'Wallenda's Last Stand', McCallum taking on the melody line here. An in-context take on 'All the Things You Are' late on in the set was one of the highlights, the familiar swung melody played straight over some idiosyncratic harmonic twists and turns.

Many elements worked really well here, and there were not a few quite beautiful moments. Overall the folky drone approach did feel a little mono-thematic however, and at times the interplay between the players seemed a little confused and out of sync to my ear. I noticed some people's attention re-focussing when Walker played snippets of funk groove here and there to check his sound. Perhaps the addition of a few pieces like this would help diversify the set.