Sugarwork,

Sugarwork

own label

Paul Harrison is one of the Scottish jazz scene’s most versatile musicians. As a pianist he’s as likely to turn up playing swing classics as he is the music of Brazilian composer Egberto Gismonti and on electronic keyboards he’s equally fascinated by organ grooves and creating new sounds.

It’s in this last endeavour that his group Sugarwork finds him. Joined by three other restless spirits – saxophonist Phil Bancroft, guitarist Graeme Stephen and drummer Stuart Brown – Harrison fashions and manipulates music that’s by turns robust and forthright, gently probing, strongly melodic and intriguingly atmospheric.

The opening Habit Control is a blast of tough directness set against fidgety rhythms and while over its nine companion pieces the boldness ebbs and flows and gives way to tenderness and vulnerability, with beautifully inventive playing from Bancroft and Stephen, the sense of a quest for new things to say and different tones to say them in is ever-present.

Harrison didn’t rush this, the group’s first album and that shows on attention to detail where even the final fade out has imaginative ticks and clicks. Even so, it’ll be fascinating to hear where the next set of adventures takes this intrepid quartet.