Melbourne-based jazz piano trio Refraction have released their debut album As We Were in March 2015 on independent label Rare Colour Records.
Category: Album Releases
“I feel that I now have the expertise, musicality and understanding of what could be described as ‘groundbreaking’ as part of my role as a performer and academic.”
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“There’s a lot of freedom working alone, and although the same can be said for working with others, the amount of freedom hinges on whether it’s improvised alone or with a group, or if the goal is for it to be through-composed or not, and if that composition is written by myself or collaboratively”
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“Gary Daley has, across Sanctuary, gone for the primal and the spiritual – the earthy and the ephemeral – in almost equal balance.”
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Yet, despite the expanded palette of harmonies and timbres afforded by the larger band, Willis keeps a firm hand on the tiller throughout – his characteristic minimalistic and repetitive touches are all here, as well as the timbral and melodic surprises which playfully dent and scratch the sheen of his music.
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Jamie Oehlers: “Everything we do is enveloped in the arts, from the music we hear on the radio, the television shows we watch, the community events that draw people together, the phone we put in our hand. Art is all around us and inspires new thought and communication. This is how we create an identity as a national – not through digging up coal.”
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“The sinewy energy of this piano-less format winds the bristling tension up to cracking point on the more free-jazz passages. It is leavened with chill riffs from the classic tenor-trumpet hard-bop front line, and deep soul grooves underneath it all”.
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The binding quality of Ellen Kirkwood’s music and her collaborations is that is consistently has one foot firmly in jazz and the other trailing in the waters of a tangy broth of blues, rock, gypsy swing, klezmer, reggae and you-name-it.
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Sandy Evans’ playing across the album is unique and spiritedly human, which is what we have come to expect from her. Her questing nature and driven desire to consistently move out of the confines of Jazz has shown her to be an artist going for a universal sound.
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Casey Golden’s music appears to come from another world. There is the coolness and openness of outer space in this music. There is also an alienness about his compositions and his approach to improvisation that is at once intriguing and endlessly surprising
