Hill Collective: Fire In Orbit
Bringing huge credit to my home city is the Hill Collective, a Brighton-based ensemble rooted in spiritual jazz that keeps things loose and is unafraid to let the raw edges show when the band gets to work. Fire In Orbit is their second album, a leaner and more focused studio statement than its 2024 predecessor that engages with the influence of Sun Ra while incorporating the sonic mayhem of a Mingus big band.
The opening title track begins gently, the piano circling an infectious bass line over a snapping drum beat before a vocal chorus takes us to the stars and leader Pete Piskov makes his mark on alto. Solo statements and communal choruses merge seamlessly, orbiting each other as the album title demands. Keep Breathing turns inward, its sax and flute opening dialogue settling into a devotional pulse before vocals turn the song into a mantra. A House Is A Home Like Honey is an unhurried as they come, slowly unfolding around a relaxed theme until around seven minutes in, the horns rise together in intensity before easing back into reflection. It’s one of these tracks defined by a simplicity that hides a lot of skill. The closing Song For A Blossom Baby has a clear chorus, solo, chorus structure delivered in an angular time signature and with interesting, vaguely eastern intonations and some unsettling interjections and changes of tempo that add great interest. Its last few minutes of sonic disorder are a fine reminder that is a great live band whose adventures on stage always make for a very happy outing.
Discography
Fire In Orbit; Keep Breathing; House Is A Home Like Honey; Song For A Blossom Baby (37.53)
Pete Piskov (as, pc); Will Roberts (tb); Ivy Koska (c); Jay Orpana (f, v); Max Generowicz (vn); Vincent Malloch (elg); Luke Congdon (p, ky); Chris Luu (kyb, v); Joe Snelling (b); Sudhi S Pooniyil (tab); Joe Edwards (d, cga, oc). Sea Breeze Studios, c. 2025.
Batov Records BTR137
Chris Coull Quartet with Imogen Ryall: Songs From Porgy And Bess
And more from Brighton, this time a fine set from Chris Coull, a local trumpeter and dedicated promoter of (at minimum) two regular, well-attended gigs every week. As a boy, Chris stumbled upon his father’s vinyl album of the Miles Davis, Gil Evans 1958 collaboration on Porgy And Bess and later heard the Glyndebourne box set of the opera featuring Willard White. He thought about creating his own arrangements to the music, but it is only recently that he brought together his various ideas, helped by finding the right singer in Imogen Ryall, whose flawless diction, jazz sensibility and sense of theatre makes her an ideal lead.
To some extent the nostalgic familiarity of Porgy And Bess, its well-known songs, the classic Davis-Evans collaboration, the Louis–Ella duets and Ella’s own Gershwin songbook from the late 1950s all overshadow the piece today. But Coull avoids the predictable clichés – and ignores the Miles centenary pressures – through the strength of his arrangements while keeping close to the spirit of the original. The opening Buzzard Song moves along snappily, My Man’s Gone Now is a reworked revelation, It Ain’t Necessarily So a buoyant delight, Prayer (Oh Dr Jesus) a sanctified highlight, There’s A Boat Leaving Soon a rarely heard pleasure. Throughout, the rhythm section is light and airy, pianist John Turville standing out for eloquence, Simon Thorpe for his fine bass work, notably on I’ve Got Plenty Of Nothing, Matt Fishwick for his overall consistency. Leader Coull – on trumpet for all but two of the songs – avoids the usual languid blues associated with the music and delivers a bop sensibility and precision to the proceedings. What’s not to like!
Discography
The Buzzard Song; Gone, Gone, Gone/Gone; My Man’s Gone Now; Porgy, I’m Your Woman Now; I’ve Got Plenty Of Nothing; It Ain’t Necessarily So; Prayer (Oh Dr Jesus); Strawberry Woman – Honey Man; I Love You, Porgy; There’s A Boat Leaving Soon For New York; Oh Lord, I’m On My Way; Summertime (59.25)
Coull (t, flh); Ryall (v); John Turvillle (p); Simon Thorpe (b); Matt Fishwick (d). Tunbridge Wells, Kent, 23 July 2025.
Rubicon RJZ1008
Fluidian: Windscapes
It says much for my skills as a reviewer that the Romanian musician Emil Gherasim – the innovator behind Fluidian – had to remind me when sending out the download for Windscapes that I had reviewed this new album’s predecessor, Opaque Lights with Arve Henriksen, back in February 2022. I’m glad his memory is better than mine, but even more delighted to hear his music again. The 14 Windscapes are a series of miniature, momentary pieces, sound adventures suggesting ephemeral stories imbued with profound feelings. In this imaginary state of mind, visual perception is confused and obscure visions are surrounded by a lack of clarity. The music pulsates slowly, evoking a blurred, dark, landscape, floating gently in the moonlight.
Throughout, Gherasim provides the varied ambient backdrops, contributing wondrous guitar lines and pizzicato accompaniments, as well as some well-judged samples from chamber orchestras, that gently grab the attention. Trumpeter Nils Petter Molvaer joins Gherasim on six of the pieces, always unhurried, always poised and precise. The two mesh together perfectly, but in truth it is not the individual performances that stand out, rather the combined ambience and overall feel of the set. For this is not music to be hurried over or listened to on the go, more a soundbath into which one can relax at leisure.
Discography
Doubt I; Spike Tales; Vague – Limp Pulses; Interludian; Consternation I; Spikes I; Soundfog – Limp Pulses; Consternation II: Sandshapes I; Doubt II; Parallel Corridors; Away From The Other Side; Spikes II; Sandshapes II (40.03)
Nils Petter Molvaer (t), Emil Gherasim (p, g, syn, elec, chamber orchestra samples). Norway, 2025?
Fluidian Music – Bandcamp download
