uroboro

While Uroboro’s debut was a sprawling assemblage of two studio sessions lasting well over two hours (and even more with all the bonus tracks if one downloaded it), this second effort shows what the group can achieve in a live setting, offering five cuts drawn from that debut, A Story Like Fire, plus two cuts scheduled for the band’s next studio album in 2025. This time out the group is a little different, with regular keyboardist Laura Cole out due to illness, and subbing for her is none other than Matthew Bourne, whom we have covered in his endeavors with Shiver, as well as his own Harpsichords release; the remainder of the group is identical to the debut: Anton Hunter (guitar and electronics), John Pope (bass), Keith Jafrate (saxophones, spoken words, compositions), and Johnny Hunter (drums). The title track is a ten-minute jazz feast featuring guest singer Sylvie Rose, and stands as one of the finest of the new compositions featured herein. The set launches with “A Dream Where Birds Dream,” one of the highlights of the debut album, and follows up with “The Huntress,” another brilliant jazz epic that graced the first album; here, in a live setting, it seems like both pieces offer the players a little more room to stretch out — or maybe it’s just my imagination. Other tracks from the debut given new interpretations here include “Praise,” “Cesare Ha Detto,” and “Mesmerised,” the latter being another highlight of this live set, with Bourne’s piano and Anton Hunter’s guitar worthy of special recognition. “I Have Learnt the Grammar of Blue / Forget All That” is the other new composition in the live set, a dreamy piece that builds slowly from bass and drums, later with piano and guitar joining in along with the saxes, creating a formidable level of energy while still maintaining that dreamy feeling, with the backward guitar effect being a highlight of this twelve-and-a-half minute epic. All taken, As in an Unpicking of Time’s Garment shows us what Uroboro can do in a live setting, and it’s every bit as great as one might expect. – Peter Thelen, EXPOSÉ http://expose.org/index.php/articles/display/uroboro-as-in-an-unpicking-of-times-garment-3.html

This live set mixes tunes familiar from last year’s ‘A story like fire’ with new pieces. The new pieces include three tracks (‘i have learnt the grammar of blue’, ‘forget all that’, ‘as in an unpicking of time’s garment’ are from a suite entitled ‘the bass speaks’ which was recorded in September this year).

The line-up is familiar from their debut but is missing Laura Cole (due to illness) and has Matthew Bourne deputising for her on keyboard. Also missing from this gig was bassist Andy Champion, who ironically, perhaps, was drafted in to replace Pope on one recording session of the first album (Pope played on the second of those sessions).

The opening track, ‘a dream where birds dream’, builds around Pope’s delicious lolloping bass line and Johnny Hunter’s skittering drums. On this foundation, Jafrate recites the song’s words fitting these to the rhythm and conveying a feeling of beat poets.
Through the piece, piano, guitar and saxophone introduce themselves in a series of duets and short solos that bounce around the bass line. The piece was explored on the two sessions that form the ‘A story like fire’ album (one with Pope and one with Champion on bass) and, while this shares a family resemblance, the band are discovering yet more nuances in its structure. This is followed by ‘the huntress’, also having two version on ‘A story like fire’.

Here, Pope’s bass line harks back to the previous tune and gradually unpicks it into something new that wraps around Jafrate’s sinuous lines. As the group’s name implies, the pieces have a quality in which the beginning signals the ending which harks back to the beginning; the ouroborous of the snake that eats its tail. The addition of Rose’s vocals to ‘as in an unpicking of time’ creates a mesmerising experience that must have been electrifying in the confines of the locale of the recording.

But this is a band that seems to mutate to fit into its surroundings, with the versions of tunes reflecting not only the mood of the players but the acoustics and ambience of the location. This is definitely a band to keep an eye out for live as they are guaranteed to deliver high quality music that steps neatly across genres and styles to create a fresh take on improvisation. – Chris Baber, JAZZ VIEWS https://jazzviews.net/uroboro-as-in-an-unpicking-of-times-garment/