It’s unusual in jazz for line-ups to have any kind of extended continuity from album to album, but this Mercury Prize-nominated outfit have managed to hold onto the same personnel for the last 10 years. A close bond and powerful unity develops over such a period, a quality that’s abundantly obvious during this vibrant live-in-the-studio recording.
Such longevity also recruits fans willing to invest in the band via Kickstarter, and that’s how this album came to be.
Like previous Led Bib offerings the material here is wide-ranging in scope: from ballsy rock and dub-tinged ruminations to boisterous avant-freakery. The bulk of the writing comes from Mark Holub, whose crisp drumming anchors everything, and when Tony McLaren’s not exhorting his electric piano to perform wildly coruscating sonar pings and other electronic exoticisms, his left hand adds grit and punch to Liran Donin’s already waspish bass work.
Driven by the rattling interplay between Pete Grogan and Chris Williams’ turbo-charged alto saxes, they deliver a hybrid fusion with resplendently rough, pointy edges, with a riotous desire for exploration that’s still undiminished a decade in.
