Music / contemporary jazz
Review: Michelson Morley, Bebop Club/Hen & Chicken
Musically we lost a lot in the pandemic, quite apart from those gig-less empty months. Some venues have closed, some bands have dissolved and some musical networks seemed to have fragmented. The post-lockdown re-awakening has also brought fresh energy, however, and the reappearance of a project like Michelson Morley in the Bebop’s now well established new Bedminster home is another encouraging sign that the special creative spark of the Bristol music scene has not been even slightly dimmed.
Michelson Morley: Jake McMurchie (photo: Tony Benjamin)
Amazingly it’s been five years since they last played at the club and perhaps some of the capacity audience feared that the electro-acoustic quartet might struggle to re-acquire their tight musical impact. If so, it would have taken only the first few moments of opener Aether Drift to reassure them, the slow accretion of pedal led electronica falling into a precise pulse from Will Harris’s bass. The sudden crisp assertion of Jake McMurchie’s forceful sax riff took us exactly back to where they left us in 2018. The track evolved around that solid bass, Dan Messore’s quirky guitar interjections punctuating Jake’s elegant sax and drummer Mark Whitlam floating a collage of electronic bleeps and swirls. And then it coalesced into an electro-punk assault – big, big drums and crashing guitar and sax ramming the theme home. Oh yes, they were back alright.
Michelson Morley: Mark Whitlam, Will Harris, Dan Messore (photo: Tony Benjamin)
There was an immediate contrast with All The Welcomes, a seductively rippling current of sonic layers driven like a steady train by Mark’s shushingly melodic brushwork, providing the context for the first of several fascinating guitar solos. In another mood shift, After Math Comes The Aftermath was an assembly of musical elements around yet another compelling drum and bass backbone, the sax and guitar cascading like a classical canon. Seemingly tightly structured, the tune began subtly straying off piste in all four parts towards a more or less free interlude before a dwindling closure.
is needed now More than ever
Michelson Morley: Will Harris, Dan Messore (photo: Tony Benjamin)
As with all their music, elements of pure rock mingled with electronic discipline and the vital waywardness of jazz to make a splendidly flexible fusion style all of their own. Further highlights would include Jake’s effortlessly supple sax exhortations on Microambient Cryptomusicology and the combination of Mark’s brilliantly creative drumming with Dan’s Tom Verlaine-evoking guitar on Your Eyebrows Go Well With Your Face. Having patiently provided a series of one or two note bass pulses with reliable precision on so many tunes Will Harris finally got his moment, passing the metronome baton to Jake’s sax on End of Age, a duet number that let the bass player loose. It was impressive how just those two ‘chordless’ instruments were able to hold both melodic flow and rhythm together in a nicely balanced interplay.
Michelson Morley (photo: Tony Benjamin)
And then it all ended with the instantly recognisable Rice Rage, a jazz rock thrash with screaming guitar, Ginger Baker-style drumming and roaring saxophone all reminiscent of late 60s prog-jazz bands like Coliseum or Nucleus. It was a brilliantly enjoyable finale that drew a long, vigorous and noisy ovation – possibly tinged with immense relief that this was another of Bristol’s musical treasures Covid 19 had not dimmed in the slightest.
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