for Jazz Ian Perry
Fergus McCreadie, Forest Floor
(Music Room, Liverpool, 1 March 2023 and
13 May 2024)
for David Hynes
flights of uninflected prog rock keyboard riffs
on a grand
entuning furze and heather hills
and dawning moods
cluster into static chords –
landslides of tumbling
notes and left-hand
thunder
white water pouring impurely
down contrapuntal ravines
under constant drizzle
misting imagined vistas:
shouts of sheltering shorebirds
against drones, folksong chimes
and flights
of…
Daniel Herskedal, Out of the Fog
low bellowing below the singing
submarine walrus chorus
in a music language
underlying audition:
mist, freezing fog, dusk,
obscuring unruffled sea
muffling brass
canons announce the
vibrating
approach of perdition –
long tuckets
in thickets
of miasmal
distance –
sea-elephant foot-beats
against the silver surface
above
Mário Laginha, Jangada
gentle piano runs
rise,
rolling round like a soundtrack for
an unfilmed silent movie
of Atlantic waves
till the bass and drums
invade and vision fades
into pure sonics
(as it should be) –
solo piano lines
trailing
the set up
and set out upon
by pilgrim ears!
Strength
in the flood swells
with just enough discordance
to shove the chordwork sideways
without release
until release
releases
the patterns
from pattern in one long sustain –
Cecile McLaren Salvant, Mélusine
the celestial celeste sparks
she skips from bass note to bass note
until hand drums slap the face of time
and its cheeks flush with shame
and desire –
.
Robert Sheppard
.