Four years after 2004's
Sweetness of the Water, where former drum'n'bass duo
Spring Heel Jack (
John Coxon and
Ashley Wales) began playing their own instruments and enlisting collaborators to realize their own electronic jazz vision, they return to Thirsty Ear's Blue Series
Songs and Themes. This time out,
Wales works only with samples, while
Coxon, plays guitar, violin, glockenspiel, and bass. The rest of the cast is a curious and exciting one: Vanguard jazz legend
John Tchicai plays saxophones and bass clarinet,
Orphy Robinson is on vibes, American ex-pat
Roy Campbell plays various trumpets and flute, and the rhythm section consists of double bassist
John Edwards (
Evan Parker,
James Hardway,
Steve Reid,
Paul Lovens), and drummer
Tony Marsh (who has played with everyone from
Kim Fowley to
Mike Westbrook). The guests include
J Spaceman on electric guitar on a pair of tracks, and drummers
Mark Sanders and
Rupert Clervaux on others. In the title lies the key to the album. It is a jazz record, but it is also a classical one; it is a moody, subdued, beautifully lyric and sometimes tense series of 12 charted tunes and takes.