LLoyd Miller and the Heliocentrics: Lloyd Miller and the Heliocentrics (Strut)

 |   |  1 min read

Lloyd Miller and the Heliocentrics: Rain Dance
LLoyd Miller and the Heliocentrics: Lloyd Miller and the Heliocentrics (Strut)

Both London's Heliocentrics and their label Strut have an admirable practice of getting different artists together for projects (see here and here) and sometimes they just soar.

This is one such project, the Heliocentrics with multi-instrumentalist Miller who grew up on Dixieland/New Orleans jazz but then, when his dad was posted to Iran in the late Fifties, began to pick up local instruments.

By the Sixties he was living in various parts of Europe, played with Afro-orientated Jef Gilson and has ever since been a quiet champion of Middle Eastern and North African music . . . inna jazz style.

This album -- unlike the Heliocentrics with Mulate Astatke -- doesn't aim for the spheres or come with some turbo-charge but rather allows the seductive, almost ambient-psychedelic mood to predominate as saxophones weave around flutes and what I take to be santoor and other Middle Eastern instruments.

The rhythmic pulse is kept low and propulsive for almost hypnotic effect, but over the surface the Western jazz and Middle Eastern melodies and instruments interlock (and interplay) in a way which isn't easily tagged as "world music" or "jazz" but something quite of itself.

Sometimes one party or other dominates slightly, but never hijacks proceedings -- and only Lloyd Lets Loose (with Lloyd speaking about music and anti-consumerism in the middle ground behind the more free playing) is out of place, if not downright irritating. It's a joke, but not that funny and you only need to hear it once.

But elsewhere there is (mostly) seductive, sublimely understated playing by all parties and even it doesn't reach those heights of other Heliocentrics projects it still takes wings in its own way.

Share It

Your Comments

post a comment

More from this section   Jazz at Elsewhere articles index

Crayford, Sellers, Dyne: Our Own Sweet Way (ia/Rattle)

Crayford, Sellers, Dyne: Our Own Sweet Way (ia/Rattle)

Released through the Independent Artists imprint of Auckland's Rattle label -- albums which don't quite fit the remit of Rattle Jazz but are deserving of wider distribution -- comes this... > Read more

BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2009 Mulatu Astatke and the Heliocentrics: Inspiration Information (Strut/Border)

BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2009 Mulatu Astatke and the Heliocentrics: Inspiration Information (Strut/Border)

A couple of years ago a very generous Elsewhere subscriber sent me some albums in the Ethiopiques series, music of all persuasions from Ethiopia (mostly club singers and jazz on the ones I... > Read more

Elsewhere at Elsewhere

Samuel Yirga; Guzo (Real World/Southbound)

Samuel Yirga; Guzo (Real World/Southbound)

With the Ethiopiques reissue series, the rediscovery of Mulatu Astatke, groups like Dub Colossus and Syriana, and singer Mahmoud Ahmed, the music of Ethipia has certainly garnered attention in... > Read more

David Harrow: Dub Journeys Vol 1 OICHO (Dubmissions/digital services)

David Harrow: Dub Journeys Vol 1 OICHO (Dubmissions/digital services)

Dubheads rarely need a second invitation because they know approximately what they are getting with a dub album. And the pedigree of David Harrow (aka OICHO) is impeccable: witness his work... > Read more