Afrit Nebula: What Next?
Musicians grounded in jazz have often looked further afield to expand their repertoire, moving towards non-Western patterns, cyclical rather than linear progressions and embracing a common universality through harmonics and improvisation. Elaine and Ken Edwards’ band Afrit Nebula has taken this further, mainly drawing on Middle Eastern traditions. Here they are joined by Israeli drummer and guitarist Yair Katz, a world musician of repute who has been based in Hastings/St. Leonards for some years.
There’s a rhythmic emphasis throughout the album, starting with the piano-led title track – the instruments used as a source of percussive colour and texture whilst incorporating elements of minimalism, though without the exactitude or sterility of systems music.
None of the tracks are overlong, but of enough length to develop themes or establish atmosphere, and the ones that feature Elaine’s soprano sax stand out, as repeated phrases dance and flow from her horn, effecting minor rhythmic changes. Tres Morillas is based on a traditional 15th-century Spanish song that Federico García Lorca later put words to about Moorish girls from Jaen, and can be interpreted as a story of loss or even of appropriation by Christians. Si Verías is a Sephardic Jewish folk song about perceptions, meaning “If you saw, you would see” and has Ken’s bass and Elaine’s soprano effectively shadowing each other.
A few tracks have vocals – Katz provides Everyone Knows (Koolam Yod’im), all join in chanting on Si Verias, and Ken supplies the words on Kati Kati, oddly reminding me of the idiosyncratic style of the Incredible String Band. The flute is a strong presence on this, with mbira-like percussive elements adding to the African feel. Talking Magic features Katz’s drumming as the soprano intertwines with unintelligible vocal utterances, before the words “talk to me baby” serve as a trigger for a few bars of blues.
The group’s versatility and openness of approach extend to a piano solo (Death Of The Mayfly) and an attractive arrangement of Monteverdi’s Nymph’s Lament. An engaging and diverse album.
Discography
What Next?; Nagoya; Tres Morillas; Si Verías; Everyone Knows (Koolam Yod’im); Kati Kati; Talking Magic; Death Of The Mayfly; The Nymph’s Lament (61.52)
Elaine Edwards (ss, f, kyb, p); Ken Edwards (elb, v); Yair Katz (d, pc, g, v). Hastings, May-August 2026.
Reality Street 007
Sarah Heneghan: Tiny Sacred Gaps
The press release describes the music here as evoking “landscapes, long train journeys and the changing moods of coast and countryside”, and the arrangements and juxtaposition of sounds certainly help elicit such response.
A constant throughout the album is repeated piano figures laid down by Ben Gaunt over which Charlotte Keeffe’s trumpet and flugelhorn wind, clearly and imaginatively. The tempos may change slightly and other sounds be introduced, but the recurrent motifs establish and sustain the mood. This is particularly so on It Flows Back To You, Wings & Locomotion, Light Poles and The Rhondda Line.
Heath is introspectively gentler before it changes course and becomes more assertive, Sarah Heneghan’s snare and cymbals providing a dramatic backcloth. It shares a slightly anthemic feel with Water Never Leaves, a multi-layered piece whose deepening tones glide us away, slowly and ominously.
Heneghan seems to use the other two musicians as a pivot for her vigorous drumming, as she busily darts and scuttles behind and around the piano and horn; at other times she helps provide the movement, in tandem with Gaunt’s piano, of the train’s journey. And possibly this is the key to the whole album, with Train (Interlude), electronically mimicking and contextualising the music for us. Is it the line that goes from Cardiff up the valley to Treorchy, the beauty of the hills and landscape a sharp contrast with the depressed and disadvantaged areas? Perhaps the sadness of Light Poles, slight melancholia of Water Never Leaves and brief electronic chaos in The Rhondda Line gives us a glimpse of this and an impressionistic portrait of the Welsh drummer’s homeland. Intriguing.
Discography
It Flows Back To You; Wings & Locomotion; Heath; Light Poles; Train (Interlude); The Rhondda Line; To The Root, To The Leaf; Water Never Leaves (35.51)
Heneghan (d, electronics, g); Charlotte Keeffe (t, flh); Ben Gaunt (p, org). Sheffield, date unknown.
Independent
thèriot: The Other
Musician and composer Kyle Saulnier, under his mononym, thèriot [sic], has produced an impressive amalgamation of styles on this recording, crossing various musical genres but with a firm emphasis on the strings and their interaction with the horns. For this he has used a number of highly respected New York musicians.
The strength of sound coming from Brooke Quiggins (violin), Matthew LaRocca (viola) and Samuel Quiggins (cello) is at its most effective as an introduction to and backdrop for Nadje Noorhuis’s extended flugelhorn solo on The Darkest Hour (a reference to the James Baldwin poem that begins “The darkest hour is just before the dawn”). The strings are also powerful as they closely co-ordinate with the horns before partially fragmenting on The Sweetest. Throughout the album, thèriot is not afraid of leading the music into freer areas, resulting in a potent mixture of emotion and fracture, or of moving it into more remote feelings of isolation and darkness.
In contrast, the use of the vibes in the quieter passages gives a softness and a contemplative and at times mysterious feel, whereas the occasional rock-orientated passages take the listener into areas of commotion, the full ensemble into an exhilarating urban landscape. In this respect the music is often reminiscent of a film score, following a changing narrative.
Several of the tracks are noticeable for the contribution of baritone saxophonist Andrew Gustauskas, from the slow atmospheric weariness of Fathers And Sons, in which he builds his solo beautifully, through the upbeat, driven funk of The Other Part 2 to the distant, echoing I Know The End, the lonely vocals of Francesca Blanchard added.
Discography
The Other Part1; The Darkest Hour; The Sweetest; Interlude; The Sound Of Silence; Fathers And Sons; Interlude: Pas De Deux; The Other Part 2; I Know The End (50.19)
Kyle Saulnier aka thèriot (b, bar); Nadje Noordhuis (t, flh); Andrew Gutauskas (bar, bcl, f); Brooke Quiggins (v); Matthew LaRocca (vla); Samuel Quiggins (clo); Jane Boxall (vib); Michael Chorney (g); Daniel Ryan (d, pc); Francesca Blanchard (v). Burlington, Vermont, March 2025.
ks.theory KST-011
