Band of Five Names
Empty Gardens
(Kimnara Records)
Rating: ***1/2
With their release, this Sydney trio led by trumpeter Phil Slater has taken the next evolutionary step foreshadowed in their 2003 release Severance. The music is dreamily minimalist, introspective and mostly tensionless, consisting of textured layers of sound. An important component is Slater’s laptop, used to produce a mysterious ambience that is overlaid by ethereal trumpet and the meditative keyboards of Matt McMahon plus Simon Barker’s percussive effects.
The best results are achieved when, after dream-like piano sequences – sometimes overly repetitive – with an electronic matrix and sound-colouring drums, the trumpet enters unexpectedly, with a high register clarion call of long-held notes. Wavering top-end trumpet tremolos are particularly effective in Limited, but there are lengthy patches elsewhere (the title track for example) that seem given to excessive wandering.
Evocative as this title is, these works actually encompass a far wider incarnation, producing an unearthly music of cosmic continuum that could be moving in celestial time.
This review first appeared in The Australian.
