The Other Place
CURIOS ARE CURRENTLY ON THE FRONT COVER OF JAZZWISE
“Brims with confidence, accomplishment and no little flair” **** Jazzwise
“Curios are a group right on top of their game. This is piano trio jazz of the highest order” The Jazz Mann
“There is plenty of elegance here; they want to please the ear as well as astonish it” Jazz Journal
“Cawley’s compositions are fresh-sounding, vibrant and pleasingly waried, but it is the sheer energy and snap of their interpretations that consistently impresses on this gripping, imaginative album” Vortex Jazz
“A fine trio, entitled to its big reputation” The Guardian
“An impressively assured change of gear from some serious fast-laners in British jazz” BBC Music
Track Listings
1. Pursuit
2. Plea
3. Roadster
4. Pure
5. Impure
6. Dream
7. Articles
8. The Swan
9. Belief
10. 2009 World Champion
All music by Tom Cawley
About the Album
Led by pianist and composer Tom Cawley and featuring bassist Sam Burgess and drummer Joshua Blackmore, CURIOS just get better and better. Winner of ‘Best Band’ at the last BBC Jazz Awards, they are a trio in their prime. With several years together and two acclaimed albums under their belt already, they share an empathy and collective insight that makes them one of the most brilliant piano trios in the world. Impure, their third album, and debut for Edition Records, marks the next leap forward in a remarkable creative journey that shows no sign of slowing.
If 2008‘s Closer was noted for its intricate intimacy and florid romanticism then Impure engages fully with the trio’s extraordinary live performances. Cawley has opened up the music to fully explore the group’s collective potency. There is an even greater sense of the trio as a living, breathing entity; three distinct voices merged in one song, engaged in a shared exploration of the spaces within and around Cawley’s distinctive compositions. While the music retains it’s dramatic quality there is a more mediative feel to their creative excavations driven by Cawley’s expressive, beautiful playing and the sublimely empathetic contribution of Burgess and Blackmore. Furthermore Cawley’s subtle use of a Loop Station both as a texture and as a device to compose around adds a fresh voice to the trio’s sonic palate.
The album opener, Pursuit, sets the tone as they explore a thousand complex variations on a simple melody, while the song-like Plea is about the trio breathing as one. The beautiful Pure was written with the Loop Station, and Impure (arguably the strongest demonstration of the band’s collective dynamic empathy) is based around a pedal point which is played into the looper, providing the platform for some remarkably open soloing. The brittle sounding Dream has an etherial tone driven by Cawley’s use of a harmoniser pedal, and The Swan explores the analogy of furious movement below a serene surface. The album closes with two nods to one of Cawley’s great heroes – racing driver Jenson Button – with Belief about the warm feeling when long-held faith comes good, and the hip-hop flavoured and totally self-explanatory 2009 World Champion.
The Other Place will be launched at the Purcell Room on April the 28th, following a national tour.
