Void
Void
(www.void.tv)

Here’s a new argument for secession, Western Australia. Before I listened to Void’s eponymous album I wouldn’t have put much thought to the proposition that something this good could come from anywhere west of Leichhardt (or whatever qualifies as inner west in Melbourne). This is a new feeling for me: I am bigoted. I am Syd-centric. Or, I was. Post-Void, I am enlightened.

As a whole, the album is nothing groundbreaking. If you’re into categories and comparisons it’s coming from funk-jazz à la the Brecker Brothers, updated, with a bit of Herbie Hancock thrown in. Tight unison bebop lines played fast over funk beats, chop-busting solos accompanied by extremely tasty synth use. But it’s done with such energy, skill and precision, that it ceases to matter if you’ve heard this kind of thing before. It doesn’t have to be anything particularly new because it’s played so well.

The opener, intro: Say What?! sets the whole album up. I can’t condone the punctuation but the music starts out burning: uptempo; envelope filter on the saxophone; textural shifts of keyboard sound; drum & bass vibe with the piccolo snare/fat five string combination. It’s an intro into the sound and conception, the younger musician’s take on fusion. The writing on this one is quite simple and very effective: a vamp; a double-time bebop line; a change of tempo and mood; back to the top. The compositions that follow, all by either Tom O’Halloran or Troy Roberts, are more complex in various ways. O’Halloran’s style seems to be specifically evocative. London for example, calls to mind an image of a young Australian artistic-type visiting London for the first time. Theatres everywhere, clubs, 13 or 14 newspapers, book shops, history. It’s like intellectual playland. And the tune captures that. By contrast, Roberts’ work is about grooves and blowing, more in line with the absolute music tradition, although Conzuela does paint something of a picture. A Spanish sounding intro moves into a straight-up funk – maybe it sounds like a young Spanish-Australian woman torn between ethnic heritage and the new world?

The first and only let down comes with The Break-In. The music is clearly programmatic. The opening sounds like a thief creeping around a house getting ready to steal. There’s an atmospheric middle-section which suggests some sort of redemption for the criminal, then the sirens are in hot pursuit of a Cecil Taylor-style O’Halloran solo, then there’s a recapitulation of the first theme. The problem for me is the MC: The Apprentice is a hip-hop traditionalist. He strings together rhyming couplets with the tum te tum te rhythm that the majority of poets avoid. That’s fine in its context, i.e. a straight hip-hop beat with no chord changes. But if you do it over a piece of music with more aspirational harmonic and melodic ideals it just ends up getting in the way. Spoken-word does work with this music but it generally has to be more convincingly thought through, in the style of Ursula Rucker or hip-hop legend Mike Ladd’s inspired collaboration with Vijay Iyer, In What Language?

The solos are uniformly awesome throughout. O’Halloran is all over the keys like a rash and Troy Roberts is a monster tenor. The playing of both is up there with anybody in the world. Dane Alderson on bass is in form throughout and Andrew Fisendon’s drumming propels the other three with its hyperactive momentum. The unison lines are fearless and the changes of mood are handled with subtlety that betrays great musical maturity.

I’m sorry Western Australia. Please don’t secede. I’ll try to be more aware of your music and I’ll encourage other Easterners as ignorant as myself to check you out.

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Hash Varsani is the owner of The Jazz Directory, a network of sites related to jazz, travel and everything else he loves. He also runs a selection of jazz related sites including Jazz Club Jury, a jazz club and festival review site. Check out his Google+ Profile, to see what else he's up to...probably setting up another website from one of his many passions.

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