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allaboutjazz.com - Severence Review

Mick Padden, All About Jazz, www.allaboutjazz.com

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The current version of the Band of Five Names, here a trio of trumpet, keyboards and drums with additional credits for laptops and electronics, produces the more abstract set. Matt McMahon sets the tone of the piece with repeated patterns, at times just a single chord. Simon Barker drives the music. Gives it its pace. Slater’s trumpet sits sometimes on top, other times in the gaps. Sometimes prodding, at others responding. Each track is a free-flowing mix of improvisation and sketched composition attributed to the whole trio.

Both CDs show Phil Slater and his collaborators to be some of the most creative and, imaginative musicians in Australia playing contemporary music within the jazz spectrum.