Eclectic Maybe Band supremo Guy Segers obviously has plenty of material left from his Covid period as the eleven pieces combined for Bars Without Measures were completed at various times over the last three years, with the composition of some going right back to the ’80s.
The line-up of players gathered together here must be the largest so far, with thirty listed, including three very different vocalists and three very different drummers. As ever, the one thing tying the disparate pieces together besides the questing sense of adventure is Guy’s inimitable elastic bass.
With ten horn and reed players, six string players and five guitarists, the permutations are limitless and that is the feel of the pieces here, veering from the scattershot horn-led opener “Casanova” through the athletic leap of “Senseless Ostensibly”, led by Sean Rickman‘s drums with their faintly African gait, and the ululating, dreamy croon of Dani Klein on to the surprising stasis of “Painting With Illicit Pigment”.After the surge of the opening two tracks, this sensory whirlpool with drums trying to extricate from the subterranean mystery is quite a change of pace, and perfectly illustrates the open mindedness and diversity of Guy’s ideas, and the way he allows the players and the tracks themselves to dictate direction.
The woodland flute and spectral flashes of piano on “Octopus Lagoon” find space with the sort of cymbal flashes that are seen like sunlight filtering through a dense canopy, while “Gratitude” has more of a jazz-funk sway. Sibel Dinçer‘s voice comes on like an Eastern siren, drawing you into the piano-flecked maelstrom before propelling you on a motorik bed that gradually accelerates and leaves you standing in the dust. This incredibly broad spectrum covered in the opening five tracks is continued all the way through. There is more of a progressive element to the drumming on “A Move To Unchange The Place” that allows for a kinetic sort of forward motion, highlighting the various players steeping forward to blast a brief solo. The anticipation of who and what may step forward at any moment is part of the thrill of listening to this album because, like a butterfly’s wing, that choice dictates in which direction the whole will travel.The juxtaposition of more fluid pieces with muscular rhythm-led tracks keeps you fully engaged; “Rhesus Retractible” is particularly forceful, the drums of Dirk Wachtelaer a wholly different proposition, and seems to cause something to happen to the needling leads that repeat and retract, sometimes circling and sometimes retreating entirely; yet somehow nothing is ever too long or outstays its welcome.
As the end of the album comes into focus so more surprises appear, firstly with the almost mediæval cello on “Isolation” which, as the title suggests, is a somewhat melancholy proposition, and leads us into the album closer on which Julie Tippetts makes a welcome appearance, drawing the hair on the arms up with what sounds like a Native American war chant over the deep, visceral rush of an impending storm. It is a dramatic and well-chosen point on which to leave us and once again, the realisation dawns that Guy has outdone himself. Can the Eclectic Maybe Band continue to grow like this, musicians gravitating towards it and then shining attention on that wealth of players in his armoury? We can only hope so, because he manages to draw the very best from those involved, inviting discovery of their own catalogues. It is a labour of love and one that is absolutely essential.-Mr Olivetti-
