Uroboro – A Story Like Fire

Discus

Keith Jafrate, nominal head and writer of the endless serpent that is Uroboro, gathered together this exploratory quintet to give flesh to various ideas and coincidentally to act as guinea pig for a newly converted studio the Old Post Office in Todmorden run by some friends. There was a piano already in place and an eight-second reverb which Laura Cole pronounced usable, and off the group went for an initial live run out.

Although the pieces are essentially Keith’s, they were just bare bones and he left it entirely up to the assembled players to decide how best to dress them. Keith’s dusky sax is the first ingredient, but all elements introduce themselves as opener “In Passing” starts to unfurl. The players are on tiptoe, sniffing the air, working out the acoustic possibilities of the room and revelling in them. The piece is light like a caress, the five elements immediately entwined, prowling. The tracks are long and deep enough to recognise a need for structure, often bass-led around which the other instruments revolve like dusty comet tails, their irregular trajectories and shaded textures interacting unexpectedly.

At other points they follow Keith’s lead, the sax digging into the unknown with the players shadowing him, their sounds shaking and shimmering in his wake, breaking up and reforming with an awkward, unstoppable gait, the instrument setting the flow while stomping piano and angry guitar push home the point. The different moods are pregnant with opportunities and the often languorous sax is a woozy temptress which the other players indulge sometimes, taking its lead and feeling the intoxication flow. A flamenco fling may raise its head, or charged, staccato piano will ring through the rafters; but once they hit a groove, they leave Keith to enhance with sultry salvos of purrs and groans.

When Andy Champion‘s bass and Johnny Hunter‘s drums combine, they can brew up a real churn, tearing up the rhythm by the roots; and this in turn causes the others to frazzle, enlivened by the singular tempo. At some points, a dreamlike cascade of sound ensues while in others, as in the portentous “Straight Up Ahead”, I couldn’t help but hear a heavy flicker of Shock Headed Peters bass as the sax is dragged in its irresistible wake. More purposefully abrupt, more difficult notes are cracked and sustained as the intensity increases.

Towards the end of the first disc, more abstract textures emerge and these suit Keith’s lyrics, particularly on “A Story Like Fire” where the space between the words is like the air vibrating around the instruments. The words are dropped carefully, fully and perfectly formed, into low-level radiation leading to a brief loss of composure from the other four before drifting to an electronics-studded end.

The second disc included here is from a different studio and with a different bassist, the strength and structure of John Pope giving way to a lighter, more integrated Andy Champion tone; and interestingly, four of the eight tracks are reworks of tracks from the Pope session, giving the listener an opportunity to hear a different rendering. The other four players show familiarity with the pieces and further comfort in the joint venture, with delicious little drum fills and an abstract subtlety that causes the pieces to coalesce in a different way. Where the piano leads, the sax follows later and is sweeter, more enigmatic, not attempting to answer any questions.

Keith adds words to “A Dream Where Birds Dream” and “The Huntress” is a little more confident. These are in no way carbon copies of the earlier session and they way that they are interleaved with other compositions, gives this a very separate listening experience. “Praise” laps gently against a deserted beach, each wave varying slightly, the percussive pebbles and scorched guitar overwhelmed by more piano stomp and wild sax. These pieces feel more elemental, wilder and more emphatic while Andy’s softer approach loosens the tethers.

Towards the end, the stirring piano and sax conversation of “Mesmerised” is full of trembling tones, the bass drawing in succour and the guitar a gentle reflection. This dreamlike sequence where the tear-like reverberations and flutter of percussion show another side of the ensemble, a nebulous quality very different to “Unlaced”, where the sax takes on the sweetness of a clarinet and feels like a trip down memory lane, a romantic dart into the past, a joyful revel in a lost era with an opportunity for the bass to stretch its legs and soothe our weary souls. The final track hints at space and further possibilities, the group deconstructing as if in preparation for some as yet unrealised next chapter, the gentle bowing of the bass ushering the players behind the curtain and into the shadows.

A Story Like Fire is a work of passionate interaction and the search for a new way of progressing, taking Keith’s ideas, dissecting and repackaging them with a joy and sense of adventure that is tempered by mystery and a sinuous charm. The two discs are certainly varied enough to warrant their joining together as one album and provide a pretty impressive and dramatic exploration.

-Mr Olivetti-