Harry Christelis feat. Christos Stylianides, Andrea Di Biase & Dave Storey - Half Truths (Clonmell Jazz Social) [Jazz]

London born and bred, Harry Christelis is a guitarist, composer, bandleader and forward looking force for good in the city's improvised and jazz scenes, with his fondness for fusing jazz with experimental ambient electronica, as well as being able to slot into more straight ahead outfits; he's even played with Nigerian legend Bukky Leo.

‘Half Truths’ sees Christelis speed dialling his long standing quartet - Christos Stylianides on trumpet and helping out on effects, Andrea Di Biase plucking double bass as well as tinkling the synths and the patient Dave Storey on drums.

I've been extolling the virtues of ambient jazz for years desperately looking for examples, and with today's affordable home studio equipment I wish more jazz musicians would get with the program, at least as a side project, there's something about restrained jazziness floating across electronic soundscapes that is very, very right.

Thankfully Christelis needs no encouragement and the EP opener, "Jon's Moon" eases its way through the speakers with a barely pulsing drone that gradually builds in intensity as the musicians take time considering their options, wisely deciding to sparingly sail over the soundscape, before landing together around the five minute mark to compare notes and have a chin wag, before hitching a silent ride on the ambient outro. Next up is the EP title track which eschews instrumentation, or at least any recognisable instrumental sounds, to focus on the gradually intensifying, throbbing and quivering drone and synth sounds, and which should appeal to the dark (but not satanic) ambient crew.

"And So We March On" is a twentieth century throwback, with an almost Christmas like trumpet line threading an oddly straight ahead, easy jazz course as if the world of electronic augmentation didn't exist. Fortunately the daring returns on the well named EP closing, "Exploration of One's Self Inside a Caravan". The ambient intro is back, peppered with some rare contributions from Storey and all sorts of oddball sounds. A couple of minutes in, the warm, unhurried bass sounds of Di Biase provide a meandering framework which the rest of the crew pepper with one off sounds and lapsed flourishes, creating a pleasing and surprisingly cohesive microsound infused soundscape whose intensity and familiarity gradually disintegrates into late night haziness.

Apart from the odd inclusion of "And So We March On" the EP is a boundary nudging ambient jazz transmission that refreshingly doesn't sound like too much else around. Apparently it's a taste of a "larger body of work" to come, and I for one am waiting.

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Playlist Companion

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