BUY CD"One of the most important bands Australia has produced" - John Shand SMH
Phil Slater Quartet
The Thousands
John Napier - Music Forum
This is a tremendous achievement, led by Phil Slater, but deriving above all from the creative interplay of four remarkable players. The scope and size of some of the tracks suggest both imaginitive conceptualisation and a highly developed ability to spontaneously and collectively draw worlds that are symphonic in scope. Some tracks, such a s Crest are multi-part; others,most notably the title track and the opening Burden of Corners follow a single trajectory. The Thousands builds from a posed trumpet melody, delicately doubled by the piano and imaginativly counterpointed by the bass. The expressively controlled opening of Burden, with its evolving sense of time and subtle timbrel manipulation gives way to a gradual developing energy, with Slater's reiterated notes flashing into powerful sinuous lines: the edge keeps the listener alert and engaged through the quietest moments. The initially archaic polyphony implicit in McMahon's solo playing juxtaposes the urgency of Swanton and Barker's accompaniment in rebuilding from the quietest of cadences in the middle of the track.
The liquid sonority of McMahon's unfolding, against the dialogue of trumpet an bass in Crest must be heard. The moody world of the Rhythme of Mantra and Knife offers a dark relaxation, before giving way to the more Latin - inflected opening of Lissom. But to this reviewer, the most striking track was Tedium, in which a single obsesssive idea, the reiteration of notes and chords on the piano, underpins a breathy, almost dreamy trumpet solo which gradually evolves into something either savage or exhilarating.
Phil Slater Quartet
The Thousands
Adrian Jackson - Rhythms
The Phil Slater Quartet heard on The Thousands is BO5N plus Lloyd Swanton; the have played some high profile gigs in the last year, including wangaratta last November and Jazz:Now in September. It is an acoustic ensemble, with Slater just playing trumpet and McMahon piano, and with Swanton's bass giving the band a more conventional sound and instrumentation. Nevertheless, the music is immediately recognisable as Slater's. There is a calm, almost meditative air to most of the tracks on this album. The way that the performances unfold at such an unhurried pace often recalls the music of BO5N, and also of course Swanton's primary project, The Necks.
The use of space is a key feature of this music, too; this gives extra weight to what is played , and Slater's phrasing is often powerfully expressive, as is his compressed, centered tone. In this regard, the music is rather similar to that of Tomasz Stanko's last few albums (although I doubt you would mistake one for the other). It's doubly effective on the rare occasions when he abandons restraint, such as his desperate, barely controlled scribblings at the climax of his solo on Tedium; it typifies the ensemble's ability to subtly escalate the intensity of their music. It also typifies their approach that the track doesn't end with the peak of the trumpet solo, or with Slater returing to an opening melody. instead it winds down with a repeating motif from the pianist. This band doesn't just play the melody and chord changes, they explore the mood of each composition.
Superb as Slater's playing is, the selfless contributions of the other players are no less important. Scattered throughout the album are moments when you can appreciate just how creative, while undemostrative, their contributions are. This is a brilliant album, one that rewards repeated listening.
Phil Slater Quartet
The Thousands
John Shand - Limelight
Weightlessness is not exclusively the domain of astronauts. Phil Slater’s Quartet creates it with the phenomenal sense of suspension they achieve. The opening Burden of Corners has pianist Matt McMahon, bassist Lloyd Swanton and drummer Simon Barker implying an insistent pulse, yet seldom overtly stating it, while Slater’s trumpet shoots rapid-fire phrases across the rhythmic void. On the beautiful Crest there’s a tinkling lightness of cymbals, piano and bass against Slater’s legato phrases and also during a three-way dialogue without the horn. Tedium has a necks-like underwater piano figure, against which the percussion surges and crashes, while Slater delivers splintered lines of staggering power. Rhyme of Knife and Mantra drifts ominously, Lissom levitates through it’s own velocity, and, while the title track crunches back to earth, Bone Epilogue hovers hypnotically to support a glorious piano solo.
These are the 21st century implications of Miles Davis’s 1960’s Quintet.
Phil Slater Qt
The Thousands
John Clare - Sydney Morning Herald
This is one of Australia's most satisfying bands, live or on disc, and it must take its place with the great bands we've had.
Rather than present a series of pieces that are fast, slow, bright, moody and so on, they offer compositions that are like seas, capable of being held in thralls of tranquillity or moved by local winds or distant storms into dynamic and even violent motion. If this were a formula it would soon be felt as such but action or near-stasis are triggered by group interactions of great subtlety.
The players are at the peak of their music. They are trumpeter Slater, bassist Lloyd Swanton, pianist Matt McMahon and drummer Simon Barker.
Slater's opening melodies are of great beauty, as is his distinctive trumpet tone. These compositions develop like a classical music piece, although much of it is spontaneous.
The Thousands
Phil Slater Quartet
John McBeath - The Australian
These four players, some of the best in the country, know each other’s work well. The leader, Sydney trumpeter Phil Slater, wrote all seven tracks, at least a couple of which have been previously recorded. But these are more elongated versions, with ample time for everyone, especially Slater’s long-term simpatico pianist, Matt McMahon, to thoroughly explore. Burden of Corners runs for more than 10 minutes, moving through various tempos from plaintive and mystical to superheated swinging. With Lloyd Swanton’s bass and drummer Simon barker substantially underpinning them, piano and trumpet are free to meander or stoke excitement to a delirious level, as they do in the climax to Tedium. Slater’s soft brass tonality in slower passages introduces a magical atmosphere, while elsewhere when bass and drums lay down an ineluctable beat, the trumpet flies high overhead, pulsing, fluttering and declaiming.
McMahon’s piano is never less than superbly complementary, building up the melody’s harmonies, using tremolo and rippling chords and soloing with great invention and rapport.