Not at the Coast, no.1

This was Easter Sunday and unlike 80%of Canberrans, I was not out of town so I had a lovely sunny afternoon for music. The first was wordmadeflesh. There are obvious Christian references here, and what could be more appropriate at Easter. I was just surprised by the music I encountered. wmf was a groove-based sax trio touching on reggae and rock and funk and other pop beats with highly syncopated drums, nicely adventurous saxes (mainly alto, but also soprano and tenor) and a bass that held a mean beat, with slap or finger playing or wah or whatever. I’d heard Demetri before and was well impressed when he was sitting in with Linda Tinney, a very nice local pianist/singer. He told me that wmf dates back over 10-years, but it seems they don’t play too often. That’s sad. This is cool, original music by capable players. Demetri was sidestepping and bending harmonies with abandon while also stating steady bluesy melodies. To me, Andrew played a more pop/rock –oriented style, but he syncopated to hell, right hand against left, triplets and the rest dropped in for very clever and busy, but tasteful, grooves. Andrei held steady grooves with some nicely smooth fills, chords on the octave, slaps and slides and modernised his sounds with effects and especially a cry-baby wah. There were plenty of odd times. I counted 6/4 and a couple of 7/4s along with 4s and 8s, but this was jazz-rock single chord stuff, embellished occasionally with an extra chord of two. And, of course, it was nicely open sounding with no chordal instrument except when the bass fell into double-stops and strums. All originals, cool grooves; loved it. Headhunters of the world, unite.

wordmadeflesh are Demetri Neidorf (saxes), Andrei Lena (bass) and Andrew Mitchell (drums).