release date: 20.05.2022 on Strut Records
more than the sum of its parts, Flock is never less than intriguing. ★ ★ ★ ★ MOJO
recorded in a single day when the players were clearly on cracking form, this quietly magnificent debut dips into modal jazz, Afrofunk and analogue glitch 8/10 UNCUT
a forward-thinking, highly atmospheric and distinctive concoction of modern jazz and experimentalism with an electronic edge 8/10 FUTURE MUSIC
Flock is gloriously unpredictable, and you only hope there’s more of this to come. ELECTRONIC SOUND
Major new project announcing on Strut today featuring a heavyweight line-up of forward-thinking UK jazz players. Flock comprises Bex Burch (Vula Viel), Danalogue (The Comet Is Coming, Soccer96), Sarathy Korwar, Al MacSween (Maisha) and Tamar Osborn (Collocutor).
First brought together for a Boiler Room, TRC and Night Dreamer session during lockdown, the group has since become a tight unit with an unsaid musical understanding and a very different approach to recording. “I wrote texts as scores for the session with the emphasis on breathing and listening to each other,” explains Burch. “It was a new journey into the unknown for all of us where we were never fully in control.”
Tracks include the pulsing, searching opener ‘Expand’, the taught soundscape ‘Prepare To Let Go’ and the frenetic, urgent ‘Bold Dream’. At times widescreen and cinematic and at others more tense and claustrophobic, each Flock piece explores its own colour and mood.
Gathering together at The Fish Factory in London Summer 2020, the approach was to try something fresh. “I had been working solo, shedding my own preconceptions about my music, and simply sitting at my instrument asking myself, ‘what music do I like today?’” explains Bex Burch. “I wanted to share this process in a room with the others. Everyone was really busy and I had some time so I reflected on what framework that needed. I wrote texts as scores for the session and knew the emphasis needed to be on breathing and listening to each other. On the day, we sat in a circle, Sarathy and Dan led 30 breaths together and I chose a text for each play. It was a really magical day. Everyone was just so open.”
“Improvisation is composition in itself,” continues Burch “so although the music was freely improvised, we sometimes chose to stay on form and rhythm, repeating melodies and groove. As Dan commented on the day, we ‘murmurated’ and that’s how the name Flock came into being. The expansive 13-minute piece ‘How Many Are One’ on the album is the perfect example. It was like a flock of birds following an energy that already existed. A collective following and leading as the music developed.”
Other tracks include the pulsing, searching opener ‘Expand’, the taught soundscape ‘Prepare To Let Go’ and the frenetic, urgent ‘Bold Dream’. At times widescreen and cinematic and at others more tense and claustrophobic, each Flock piece explores its own colour and mood.
“Some of the band had actually never met in person before the session. We played virtually together for the Boiler Room. So every moment in this process has been a new journey into the unknown. It goes to show that we were never in control even when we thought we were, and yet we made it. Everyone came, breathed and brought openness of heart, ears, lungs and wings.”
The album includes the singles Expand and Bold Dream.
TRACKLIST
STRUT232LP
A1 Expand 3.59
A2 Prepare to Let Go 4.44
A3 Sounds Welcome 7.30
B1 It’s Complicated 13.35
B2 What Purpose 3.34
C1 Murmuration 1.58
C2 Bold Dream 6.09
C3 My Resonance 7.41
D1 How Many Are One 13.49
D2 Fully Breathed 4.38
STRUT232CD
1 Expand 3.59
2 Prepare to Let Go 4.44
3 Sounds Welcome 7.30
4 It’s Complicated 13.35
5 What Purpose 3.34
6 Murmuration 1.58
7 Bold Dream 6.09
8 My Resonance 7.41
9 How Many Are One 13.49
10 Fully Breathed 4.38
Line up:
Bex Burch: gyil, vibraphone, bass drum, shakers, bells, gong, snake drum, electronics
Sarathy Korwar: drums, tabla
Danalogue: fender rhodes, roland juno-60, upright piano, roland SH-09 bass synth
Al MacSween: prepared piano, piano, moog sub37
Tamar Osborn: bass clarinet, flute, soprano sax, EHX deluxe memory boy