Whenever a piano trio employs electronic effects on a recording, as The South Trio does on Elegy For A Raver, unavoidable comparisons are drawn to the stylings of modern jazz legends Esbjorn Svensson Trio. That’s too simple and a bit misleading: The most alluring aspect of E.S.T. was in their delicacy, that no matter how raucous the music got, beneath it was a fragile melody. The South Trio ain’t composing songs made of china. Elegy For a Raver storms the ears with the subtlety of stadium rock, and the resulting anthems provide every excuse to bounce your head and stomp your foot.

Your album personnel:  William South (piano, synth, FX), Ashley Molloy South (bass), and Eddie Hick (drums).

From the opening notes of “Balls In the Air,” the trio runs the listener over with a ferocious rhythm section and sharp piano lines; the electronic flourishes are the screeching of tires in two consecutive tunes in which the band embraces a raver aesthetic with genuine good cheer. Slurred chords are shot out with industrial precision and a party-time atmosphere dominates the album. On “Sparky Limps In,” the trio takes a modern ragtime piece and drops it into the middle of a sci-fi convention; jittering piano lines accompanied by alien laser gun effects.

Beginning with “Hand On the Pillow,” the second half of the album settles into a jazz-rock fusion not unlike Ben Allison’s body of work, layering Lego blocks of melody atop one another, with the thematic expansions building intensity through repetition and not volume.

Elegy’s claim on jazz is gonna be more for its improvisation and experimentalism than its strict adoption of tradition.  It’s the kind of album that could become a focal point in the ongoing “Is it jazz?” debate. Less likely to be argued is Elegy‘s status as a fiercely ecstatic listen as it performs its balancing act on the fringes of jazz.

Released by Shift Records.  Jazz from the London scene.

NOTE:  It’s been nearly a couple months since I wrote the above review.  I’m not nearly as hot on this album as I first was, though music discovery is often like that… go crazy over an album, and then a gradual cooling off period as the album settles in on the ears.  But I have to say, as I was picking through the track choices to embed on this review reprinting, I found myself still enjoying what I heard, still found the album to be a fun listen.  Elegy appears to have some staying power.

Available on Emusic.

Here’s some language to protect emusic’s rights as the first place the above review was published (in a slightly different version):

“Emusic Review: The South Trio “Elegy for a Raver““, courtesy of eMusic.com, Inc.
© 2011 eMusic.com, Inc.

My thanks to emusic for the freelance writing gig, the opportunity to use it in this blog, and the editorial freedom to help spread the word about cool new jazz being recorded today.

The Wilson Hugget Project‘s Field of Hope is a confounding album. World jazz fusion (which typically means that non-American ethnic musics and/or instruments are used in a jazz context) that’s composed and recorded in two different locations (Durban, South Africa & London, England) and comes out sounding like three different albums. I go back and forth on this; sometimes it makes me mumble, “Close, but not quite there,” and sometimes I can’t stop listening to the album. Let’s talk about those three albums in one.

There’s the album that’s all smooth stroll, telling it like it is with an infectious groove. This is probably the strongest element of Field of Hope.

Then sometimes the album shows a face of grungy hard bop, straying close to the rock ‘n roll R&B of the sixties with its sway and shake. Then there’s the odd ambient heartbreak shuffle that might as well be the soundtrack to every movie scene with a dark tavern, a shot of whiskey, and a trail of broken dreams.

I’m an album-guy.  I never put songs on shuffle.  I like to hear an album from first note to last, and when I sense a lack of cohesion, then I get down on a recording.  A lot of that is personality; I’m just not wired to transition from song to song unless I can see the path beneath my feet.  Some people don’t need that, and so the alternating sounds on Field of Hope might not be a hindrance.  But there you go.

On the theme of cohesion, sometimes it sounds to me like the musicians aren’t all on the same page.  Maybe one is noodling a bit while a bandmate is in a succinct frame of mind… it makes for some unnecessary static.  Unless, of course, that’s intentional, because when they come together, boy oh boy, it sounds so very nice.  Just like dissonance can enhance the peace when it comes around, so perhaps Wilson Huggett is trying to do the same with cohesion.

For instance, “Field of Hope” sounds like a disjointed conversation between trumpet and guitar, as if talking about the same thing but not entirely understanding one another’s point of view, but that track leads right into “Fortieth,” and it’s the same conversation, but more listening and less talking, way scaled back, and it’s not a bad dialog to listen in on. It’s a brief conversation, but don’t stop listening, because “Romero” picks right up with the same dialog, but more voices are joining in, and it’s a beautiful thing, and now everyone gets what everyone else is saying and it’s like one voice.

Was the equation of clash-retreat-coalesce intentional?  I dunno.  Would the beauty of Romero have been as profound to my ears were it not for the seemingly disjointed nature of the song “Field of Hope”?  Probably not.  But it does go a long in explaining my inability to nail down a definitive opinion about this album.

So that’s where we are.  I’ve been listening to this album for the better part of half a year, and I’m still not sure where I stand on it.  Worth noting, however, that I still listen to this album regularly over that span of time, and perhaps my inability to dismiss it for its perceived “flaws” might be the best indicator of the album’s strength.  In any event, I felt compelled to write a review about Field of Hope, and to share it with others.  I’m also looking forward to their next album, whenever it gets recorded.

Personnel: Dan Wilson: basses, keyboards; Mark Huggett: drums; Yngvil Vattn Guttu: trumpet (1, 3, 7, 11, 12), guitar (8), flute (13); Luke Townsend: alto and soprano saxophones (2, 4, 6, 10); James Tartaglia: tenor saxophone (1-6, 8-10); Thor Kvande: keyboards (1, 3, 13); Robert Payne: keyboards (2, 4, 6, 7, 9, 12); Dave Willetts: percussion (1, 6-9, 13).

Released in 2011 on the Jazz Direct label.  Jazz from the Durban & London scenes.

A free album track is available on AllAboutJazz, courtesy of the artists.

Available on Amazon: CD | MP3