Tipping Point
I Want To Vanish
Aoidh, Na Dean Cadel Idir Parts 1-3
Origin of Species
They Aren’t Perfect and Neither Am I
Medication
The Impossibility of Silence
I See Your Eyes Before Me
A Letter
Looking for Ornette
Andy Sheppard (saxophones)
Eivind Aarset (guitar)
Michel Benitas (bass)
Sebastian Rochford (drums)
Recorded August 2014, Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI, Lugano [53:30]
Andy Sheppard is so interesting a musician that it came as a surprise to me quite how bloodless this album is. There are times when it sounds more parodic
of a certain type of ECM disc than anything else. Of course there are many lyric moments here but they seem to me too unrelieved, too complacently spread
throughout this 53-minute disc for any one moment ever truly to impinge on the memory, let alone to stir the soul.
Indeed soul and blood-stirring is the least of it. Instead there is so effortless a mastery of dynamics and tempo in Tipping Point that it is
almost a miracle in self-control. And Sheppard’s inimitably lyrical tone graces Elvis Costello’s I Want To Vanish with superb decorum. He treats
the traditional Gaelic folksong Aoidh, Na Dean Cadel Idir - somewhat pretentiously reprised twice later in different form - with a quietude and
reserved spirit that holds more back than it gives out. And despite the almost micromanaged tonal gradations of Origin of Species, and the
super-subtle bass playing of Michel Benita, the sum total never quite seems to match the instrumental finesse.
Drummer Sebastian Rochford’s They Aren’t Perfect and Neither Am I sports a natty title – something of a hostage to fortune, though – but the
playing is so respectful, so quiescent and docile that for all its felicities it doesn’t succeed in creating something memorable. Occasionally the
strait-jacket is loosed where the percussive wash and Sheppard’s slightly more taut tone bring a greater sense of commitment but these are rare moments in
an album that left me frustrated and disappointed in equal measure.
Jonathan Woolf
CD Reviews
ECM 471 4273
