(Whirlwind)The moment album from versatile Jamie Cullum trumpeter and arranger Rory Simmons’s group with creative young guitarist Chris Montague thickens the textures within a band that was already bridging American downtown jazz,prog-rock and ambient music in sonically intriguing ways. Simmons’s cinematic and conceptual approach (We Drift Meridian was inspired by reflections on oceans and islands) has a broader palette here, with synths and vaporous computer sounds wrapping around the vocals of Emilia Mårtensson and Ed Begley, and Montague’s spacey guitar,and his own shapely, clean-toned trumpet lines – new resources that bring a warmer sound than formerly to this bass-less ensemble. Folksy guitar hooks introduce plaintive, and Kenny Wheeler-like melodies over pattering electronic percussion; pumping house-like burblings and skidding dissonances underpin Begley’s languid vocals; arrhythmic snare figures badger long horn lines,and Mårtensson’s soundless mellifluousness deepens the set’s sense of space. Simmons makes highly personal music from quite a private place, but this is a spacious step beyond its predecessor, and though still fuelled by his grasp of many modern idioms.
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Source: theguardian.com