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Product details
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Track Listings
| 1. Lament |
| 2. Rooster Was A Witness |
| 3. Fable |
| 4. Meyer |
| 5. Skies Are Rare |
| 6. Mini Ha Ha |
| 7. Slims |
| 8. Distance By Clockwork |
| 9. The Face Of Mount Molehill |
| 10. Hope Machine |
| 11. La Porte |
| 12. Sirens Last Look Back |
Product Description
Review
The trio’s leader has evidently chosen a certain degree of simplicity. This session is more relaxed, with far fewer events on its horizon. Cowley’s compositions are even less conventionally jazzy than before, but they’re also not massively bloated by a rock or classical diet either: it’s as if Michael Nyman was operating a jazz piano trio. There’s minimalism, but it’s the minimalism of sheer melodic space, and a refreshing sort of simplicity. Another way of developing further is to add a dramatic string section, and to doctor his own piano sound with ambient effects, often as if its interior reverb has been magnified. The guesting guitarist Leo Abrahams also thickens up the atmospheres.
Cowley might be trying to turn his instrument into a harpsichord; there’s that kind of jangling attack. Following a gentle opener, the second tune, Rooster Was a Witness, does indeed feature a slight return to prog bounding; but this time around, the beats are predominantly metronomic and driving. During the course of the album, there’s a single solo apiece from each trio member, at least in the traditional jazz manner. It could be said that Cowley is continually soloing inside his tunes, but the bass (courtesy of new member Rex Horan) and drums mostly keep to a sturdy backbone role.
Occasionally, the style rests at the brink of retro-kitsch, but seemingly intended with high seriousness: epic doings, sometimes twitching, jolting or rolling. Cowley is mostly aiming for a more linear interpretation of jazz, subtler in its dynamics. On a couple of tracks – Mini Ha Ha, and the title-track – Cowley utilises jittering samples at the irritatingly primitive end of the range. The impish chortles and robot stutters are neither 1980s antique nor modern minimal: they just end up sounding clumsily dated and unintentionally odd when surrounded by such lush strings. It’s likely that all of these traits are deliberate, but it’s not so certain that Cowley’s taste-making always succeeds, despite the overall optimistic vitality of his tunes.
--Martin Longley
Find more music at the BBC This link will take you off Amazon in a new window
Jamie Cullum
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Customer Reviews
The Face of Mount Molehill has combined the energy from previous NCT albums - Rooster Was A Witness and the title track being prime examples - yet has some achingly beautiful melodies that give me the goosebumps.
The addition of strings, and other subtle additions (see the "Making Of" video on the NCT web site!) has added another dimension to the superb trio. Some parts take me back to Neil's Pretz album.
The opening "Lament", "Meyer", "Skies Are Rare" ooze with lovely strings - there are hints of Einaudi piano + cello. Hugely uplifting!
Have to say I'm having a little trouble digesting "Fable" with its dischords, and the laughing on "Mini Ha Ha" track is creepy! LOL! Having seen the video there's definitely some Neil Cowley fun and a trifle madness behind the tracks.
UPDATE: Actually, "Fable" is seriously growing on me!!
Top stuff from the trio - toe tapping, head rocking, heart lifting, jazz goodness :-)
...now to see if I can get to any of the gigs!
WARNING: Amazon have _two_ versions of the MP3 album - one has an extra track!! Wish I had noticed this before :-(
Musically, the tunes are based around memorable and catchy piano riffs with hints of urgent, rocky rhythms (Such as on Fables) and plenty of build ups to crescendos that then fall away. In amongst this there are gentle, almost pastoral passages, such as the opening track, Lament. Pace and direction change quite often within the songs.
The addition of strings gives the album a classical feel, and fits in well with the dramatic tunes.
Tempted to dock one star but will settle for reburning this to CD with this track at the end !
Filed without mercy under `jazz', therefore destined to be deemed `too difficult' by a sizeable proportion of the... Read more
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