Review: Mammal Hands/Eyebrow, St George’s

I’m sure Eyebrow’s ever-amiable trumpeter Pete Judge would never knowingly upstage anybody but it has to be said that bringing visuals for a support slot makes you a hard act to follow. Of course, if you have an artist of the quality of Kathy Hinde (“our third Eyebrow”) on board you’d be foolish not to include her and, if truth be told, the video stream was even a challenge to the often subtle ambience of Eyebrow’s music to hold our attention. The big screen also transformed the room, covering as it did the distinctive altar piece that dominates St George’s back wall, and thus created a new space for the ethereal Eyebrow to soundtrack.

Eyebrow – visuals by Kathy Hinde

Kathy’s grey-toned visuals focused on natural movements and interactions, organic structures that form and reform constantly – the play of light and shadow, the movements of flocks of birds or crowds of people, traffic – and the music was rooted in similar processes. For the opening piece drummer Paul Wigens began with a rhythmic chug on violin as Pete Judge built a rising trumpet piece using loops and sustain to build a quasi-classical phrase into a solid texture. Once the drumming began, the two players shifted into a more edgy sound with an emphatic ending that echoed away.

It was a neat statement of the Eyebrow method, whereby the trumpet added calculated elements with the minimum of flourish and the drumming let rhythmic phrases evolve through almost imperceptible variations to create tone and texture all of its own. The electronics, when used, extended and held onto sound rather than introducing new elements and it all added up to a nicely judged soundtrack for the striking film above them. By the final number – a segue of Overpass and Sediment – there was even an element of rocking out (albeit in moderation) to bring the set to a satisfying conclusion.

Mammal Hands – Jordan Smart, Nick Smart and Jesse Barrett

The big religious painting was back when Mammal Hands took to the stage, restoring St George’s concert hall ethos. The last time they played in Bristol it was at a packed Fleece, where it had felt the minimalism of the music and the static standing audience might have suited a seated venue better. So it was interesting that this gig was less well attended, perhaps indicating the band’s audience is less willing to identify with more sedate venues. What the gig offered pianist Nick Smart, however, was a quality Steinway to play and despite the keyboard set up beside it he pretty much stuck to the grand piano throughout.

They opened with Solitary Bee, a catchy number from new album Shadow Work that set out the trio’s stall neatly with its simple three note phrase, rolling piano right hand, elaborated raga-style sax and judiciously understated drumming. The monotonic feel burst into light with a folkishly melodic middle eight, then returned to re-emphasise through repetition to the end. There was a similar monotonic emphasis to Transfixed, with Nick standing to manually dampen the piano strings in tight unison with brother Jordan’s sax while Jesse Barrett’s tabla-enriched drumming explored cross-rhythmic possibilities. When the eventual stentorian piano chords came in it was like Massive Attack meeting Terry Riley at Philip Glass’s place, the sax voice more imploring than ever.

When things got big there was a problem with the sound, however, as St George’s lively acoustic boosted the drums and piano’s natural output and the sax became disadvantaged by the amplified bass drum. It was an unfortunate remix at times but certainly didn’t diminish the response to Boreal Forest, the epic track that has already become something of an anthem with its Steve Reich-ian arpeggios, simmering drumming polyrhythms and eloquent sax. The tune built, coalesced and thundered to an exhilarating and mighty stop followed, inevitably, by a roar of appreciation.

As part of the Gondwana scene, Mammal Hands stand comparison with former label mates GoGo Penguin and the revitalised Portico Quartet but their wider influences that include traditional folk and Indian classical music give the music a distinctive colouration. Their clarity of purpose gave a definite tightness even in their freer moments, an aura of composition never being far away. In a chamber jazz environment like St George’s it’s possible more variation of time and tempo might have added something to the set, and it would have been interesting to hear it as a purely acoustic performance, too (though that may have cramped the creativity of drummer Jesse a bit too much).