A humdrum star

"A Humdrum Star is the culmination of the musical development they have been building towards since their debut "Fanfares" appeared on Matthew Halsall's Gondwana records back in 2012. The influences from electronic music have been absorbed, developed and interpreted from the standpoint of musicians with interests in modern classical, jazz and improvised music which means that, like Mats Gustafsson trying to define jazz, heaven only knows what we should call it. What we can say is that it is an exciting, exhilarating and original blend that freshens up its sources and takes them somewhere new. 2018 has its first classic - highly recommended".

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"The band's fourth studio album, and second for Blue Note, 2018's atmospheric A Humdrum Star, finds them delving even deeper into an electronic-influenced sound that favors texture and mood over standards or jazz-based elements ... The trio offers a set of original compositions rife with skittering breakbeats, rolling piano melodies, and warm acoustic bass grooves. It's a style that seems informed as much by the computer-based production of Four Tet and Amon Tobin as the hypnotic classical compositions of Philip Glass and the '70s jazz of Keith Jarrett. To achieve this cross-pollinated aesthetic, the band purportedly balance their compositional process between writing songs on their instruments and utilizing electronic production programs that they then translate to live instrumentation. As a result, these songs have the wave-like flow of electronic dance tracks but with the expansive, acoustic atmosphere of classic ECM recordings".

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