(Newmarket Music)  

International trio create sparse avant-jazz 

A real globetrotting story this: Australian pianist Sean Foran and Norwegian vocalist Kari Bleivik put together their group while Foran was based in Leeds. Belgian clarinettist Joachim Badenhorst previously worked with Foran in Canada, and so he joined the fold and Vehere was born. Using their respective instruments only (piano, voice and clarinet), new album Unravelling is a quietly adventurous way to spend an hour or so. Although it is largely soft and gentle, it’s not dinner-party jazz – the sounds are more austere, dark and occasionally atonal than your average coffee-chain compilation. And it’s certainly a heck of a lot more interesting and exotic. The material is wonderfully varied, veering from Foran’s compositions (including the cool, scat-heavy title track) to Swedish folk songs and Nick Drake. Drake’s Things Behind The Sun (from the similarly sparse Pink Moon) is given a piano-and-female-vocalist reinvention. While it can never replicate the haunting woodiness of the original, it’s still a spectral and lovely rearrangement. Other highlights include the dynamic musical nooks and crannies of Carefully Considered, the Badenhorst-showcase Cafe and the elegiac They Sold Their Homesteads.

MATT THROWER

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