Here are a couple of albums that lean left.
The trio of Mike Fletcher/as-fl, Ollie Brice/b and Tymoteusz Jozwiak/dr create six pieces that feel loose and fairly free form. Suplle pieces such as “Dedication” and “Nick of Time” float like drifting feathers while Fletcher’s warm alto opens and closes the former, bookending Brice’s languid bass. A dreary mood floats on”What Remains is Still to Come” while effects on”Interlude” and some frolicking are palpable on “Fall In”. Some subterranean agitation by Jozwiak creates some tension on “From the Off”. Spontaneous without combustion.
Concert settings are used for a rotating communal team which includes Ana Isabel Dias/harp, Filipe Homem Fonseca/g, George Haslam/bare, Miguel Martins/p-pedals-melodica, Rebecca Gradissimo/p, and Sonia Montenegro/laptop through seven highly intuitive pieces. There is a mix of free impressionism (“Gunakadeit”) and slug-it-out distortion and cacophony (“Charybdos”) which feel like the soundtrack to some artsy flick. Moody and eerie atmospheres are prevalent on “Requiem por N. Sr. da Agrela” and “A Terceira Sala” feature mixtures of laptop computers and quizzical melodicas, while Dias’ Harp is the connection between all tunes, sometimes creating sounds akin to the Orient, and other times going to the celestials. Must have been something to see, but I doubt if anyone in the crowd was humming a melody on the way out.
Slam Records