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Yazz Ahmed
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JAZZ GLASGOW INTERNATIONAL JAZZ FESTIVAL Various venues, Glasgow, Wed 20—Sun 24 Jun
Discussions about the new wave of British jazz have tended to focus on the London soul-jazz scene, but as this year’s Glasgow Jazz Festival programme shows, there’s a lot more going on. Award-winning saxophonist Helena Kay, ace drummer Fergus McCreadie and the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra are among the acts representing the revitalised Scottish scene, while England- based highlights include the brilliant avant-garde pianist Alexander Hawkins, percussionist Sarathy Korwar, and harpist Alina Bzhezhinksa’s tribute to Alice and John Coltrane.
Two of the most exciting contemporary bookings are Mercury
Prize nominees Dinosaur (led by trumpeter Laura Jurd) and British- Bahraini trumpeter Yazz Ahmed. Both acts draw on rock and electronic influences while adding some unusual twists. While Dinosaur’s 2016 debut Together As One tuned into 70s Miles
Davis, its successor Wonder Trail gestures towards 80s pop, via Elliot Galvin’s colourful synth eruptions. One of the most striking tracks is ‘Set Free’, where Jurd sings what sounds like an English folk song. 'I've always been quite attracted to that sort of thing. Folk music and folk melodies are something that have always been there for me.’ Jurd likes to colour her songs’ rock and pop harmonies with ‘little sprinklings of more obscure harmony’ from jazz and contemporary classical music.
Ahmed was inspired to play the trumpet by her maternal
grandfather, the British jazzer Terry Brown. She studied jazz and classical, but it wasn’t until she began exploring the music of her mixed heritage that she found her true voice. ‘For me Middle Eastern music is very heartfelt and I think it
relates beautifully with jazz which is also a very expressive music. I'm also influenced by people I've worked with from other styles like Radiohead, These New Puritans and Jason Singh. I love using electronics in my music, I think it can add another dimension.’ (Stewart Smith)
HIP HOP / SAMPLES CARBS Glad Café, Glasgow, Fri 8 Jun; Henry’s Cellar Bar, Edinburgh, Sat 9 Jun
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After their last two albums had similarly punny titles, you get the feeling Carbs are all about building a record purely around a concept that amuses them. And you’d be right. ‘When Jonnie came up with the idea of sampling music from YouTube and calling it YouTubular Bells, we knew it was time to write some new stuff now we had a silly gimmick to go with,’ explains Jamie Scott aka MC Almond Milk.
The hip hop duo’s new EP is a short but sweet one-off, fusing samples found from YouTube, mainly videos demonstrating rare pieces of gear, to create a library of loops and beats. To this they added Carbs’ trademark deadpan, self-deprecating lyricism to create a fleeting burst of musical experimentation. With hip hop playing as important a role as it ever has in using music to convey socially and politically important messages, Carbs’ brand of Scothop – which deals in mickey-taking, nostalgia and examining the quotidian – stands out as a slice of fun in an often sombre scene.
‘There’s some amazing, important music coming out,’ Scott says. ‘Hip hop has always been a really great format for people to speak in a completely open way to get their message across. We just don’t happen to be doing that on this album.’ YouTubular Bells is as much exploring the duo’s lives and friendship as it is anything else. Tracks alluding to Sonic the Hedgehog and Super Mario give a nod to their 90s mania, as well as their cooperative-slash-competitive relationship. ‘We bounce off each other. It’s as simple as who can come up with the funnier joke. If I can write a better one-liner than Jonnie in a song, I’m doing well for myself.’ (Kirstyn Smith)
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ELECTRONIC RIVAL CONSOLES Mackintosh Queen’s Cross Church, Glasgow, Wed 6 Jun
Ryan Lee West seems nonplussed by the news that he’ll be appearing in Glasgow beneath Luke Jerram’s ‘Museum of the Moon’ exhibit, a scale model of the moon itself which has been installed in the Mackintosh Queen’s Cross Church. It will, I reassure the man who has recorded under the name Rival Consoles since 2007, be perfectly suited to his music.
‘I try to make my sound seem more real,’ he says of the aesthetic which lends his synthesisers a warmth and emotional depth. ‘When you look closely at a building or a car, you notice that it’s not perfect, that there are bits of dirt, of damage. Every layer of my music tends to be slightly degraded or imperfect, which I think makes it sound a lot more realistic when it’s been put together.’ Initially recording as Aparatec, the London-based producer was the first artist to release music on his friend Robert Raths’ Erased Tapes label. ‘My sound has completely shifted from the beginning. When you start making electronic music there are so many distractions; first of all you have to learn the instruments and the equipment, and then you have to learn what you want to say.’
For West, that meant five years of exploring things and making ‘bad music’ until he felt more confident. ‘Now I start off a new record with lots and lots of improvisation until I find the sound I want. I’m obsessed with human drama and simple story, and I try to create with my music the sensation of narrative, even if that’s just a kind of raw emotion. Or at least that’s what I go looking for, and often I’m lucky enough to find it.’ (David Pollock)
1 Jun–31 Aug 2018 THE LIST 99