Pete Grogan – sax; Chris Williams – sax, effects; Liran Donin – b, effects; Mark Holub – d
Led Bib have been around roughly as long as this millennium, ploughing their own furrow through the rich tilth of contemporary acoustic jazz. Their particular approach (and there are now nearly as many approaches as practitioners) takes melody as its organising principle, but throws it into a mosh pit full of complex, frenetic rhythms, inventive improvisation, punky bluster, avant-gardist adventurism, and a spirit of fun. On Hotel Pupik they are back to a quartet, and present a spacious set of tunes that modulate collectively between textures and dynamics in a way that only becomes possible after years playing together. Where composition ends and improvisation begins is not something I’d like to guess at, even in sections that sound structurally like the head of a tune. Ultimately it doesn’t matter – this is the kind of music where you need to trust the musicians, like storytellers leading you by the hand through scenes and landscapes. Go with them. Sometimes, as in ‘Dawn Chorus’, you’ll be in warm, lush surroundings. Sometimes you’ll be in a chaos of storms and rockfalls. Sometimes it’ll be so quiet you can hear your own breath. Sometimes you’ll be in an echoic chamber, sketching its dimensions by listening for the reverberations of the band’s interventions, as in ‘Transient Weaving’. The one constant is that the players are always paying attention, and it will pay you beautiful, rewarding dividends to do the same.
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