Partikel

Counteraction

Whirlwind

ORIGINALLY a saxophone, bass and drums trio – and they may well return to this format – London-based Partikel have been expanding their sound and line-up over the past two or three years with fascinating results.

They’ve worked with a string quartet and their most recent trip to Scotland featured violinist Benet McLean, who joins the brilliant guitarist Ant Law, cellist Matthew Sharp, flautist and baritone saxophonist Anna Cooper and electronics artist Sisi Lu in enhancing the core trio on this superbly adventurous and restlessly investigative third album.

There’s no sense of a group working with guests; all the cast are fully integrated when called upon into music that can turn on a knife-edge from winsome, atmospheric melody making to dark, hard riffing.

Most of the compositions are by saxophonist Duncan Eagles who writes strong themes and forms a close partnership with McLean, notably on the initially melancholic Lanterns and over Law’s insistent guitar figure on Moving Fields, before the guitarist demonstrates his marvellously fluent improvising.

Bolden Days, in tribute to jazz trumpet pioneer Buddy Bolden, stirs in New Orleans influences and a bamboo flute interlude to further illustrate the contrasts and detail at work in this constantly stimulating music.

Rob Adams