SLAMCD278 The Bird Architects – Gone

‘Gone’ is The Bird Architects’s return, after many years, to the studio and they have enthusiastically embraced all the opportunities this offered. All the pieces were recorded ‘live’ in the studio and subsequently mixed and remixed by Marco Anderson, creating something that is the essence of the group but also something completely new.

The music has developed around an idea that tries to balance freedom and structure providing written passages – tunes and riffs which lead into much freer areas, musical cues then take the ensemble on into the next passage.

Saxophonist Aaron Standon has been around and back again playing every thing from straight ahead to free jazz. Pete Evans is a classically trained violinist who can be seen performing with a number of orchestras around the south-west. Drummer Marco Anderson is the Groundhogs’ drummer and has also played and recorded with George Brooks, Steve Vai, Dennis Rollins, Andy Sheppard, Carl Orr and John Paricelli, and bassist Mark Turner puts a rock steady punch into the mix from rough trade to a bass looped orchestra.

Aaron Standon: alto & soprano saxophone, guitar, wooden flute
Peter Evans: electric violin
Mark Turner: Buffalo bass
Marco Anderson: drums, keyboards, soundscapes

“If we were pigeonholing Bristol-based The Bird Architects, I’d put them alongside Polar Bear, Get The Blessing and Led Bib. “Gone” is a splendid, complex, raucous mélange of funk, fusion, neo-bop and free jazz in which all elements collide and meld into a satisfying whole. It was recorded “as live”, but then re-mixed and evidently subjected to other studio tricks, including over-dubbing…but who minds a bit of cheating when the results are so enjoyable? Dedicated to the late Steve Harris, sometime drummer with Pinski Zoo and leader of ZAUM, this is another jewel in Slam’s already glittering crown.” – Barry Witherden, Jazz Journal

“Jazz-rock and free jazz are perhaps the most immediately discernible styles, heavy rock riffs giving rise to scrabbling, multi-textured free playing and wild, uninhibited soloing from Evans and Standon in particular, all driven by the extraordinary ‘buffalo bass’ Turner and the powerful drumming of Anderson, whose previous credits include stints with everyone from Najmar Akhtar to Tony McPhee’s Groundhogs, Andy Sheppard and Courtney Pine to Steve Vai, but admirers of figures as apparently diverse as Frank Zappa and Ornette Coleman will find something to enjoy somewhere in this pleasing jumble of passionate, no-holds-barred sound. Unclassifiable but fascinating, frequently exhilarating music, best played extremely loud.” – Chris Parker, Vortex

Recorded at University of Bristol Studios, December 2006 and February 2007.
Engineered by Jonathen Scott.
Overdubs recorded at Andersonshelta, Bristol, 2007.
Engineered, digitally edited and constructed by Marco Anderson at Andersonshelta, Bristol, 2008.
Produced by Marco Anderson.

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