Horseless Headmen

“The Whole Nine Yards”

(North Circular Records NCR-110129)

The band name Horseless Headmen may perhaps suggest some kind of indie rock combo but this ensemble led by the enigmatically named guitarist G Painting is a beast of a very different hue.

Instead Horseless Headmen proves to be a floating coterie of veteran London improvisers who choose to describe their music as “psychedelic skronk”. Individually the Headmen have played with a veritable who’s who of musicians on the London free jazz and experimental music scenes. Besides Painting other core members of the group include Ivor Kallin on fretless bass guitar, Nick Cash on drum kit and percussion and trombonist Paul Taylor. Regular guest performer Roland H Bates, here credited with piano, synthesiser and temple bell, also makes a substantial contribution to this record and there are also appearances by regular contributors Karl Blake (bass guitar), Alex Gray (piano) and Julia Doyle (double bass).

The current aggregation was brought together by multi instrumentalist Painting (further research reveals his Christian name to be Grahame) in 2011 and “The Whole Nine Yards” represents the group’s first release on their own North Circular Records label. The five pieces were culled from live performances at London’s Club Cosmos in WC1 in 2011 and at Club Integral in SW9 in 2012. In a further description of their sound the band cite their pieces as being “spontaneously composed cosmic industrial jazz soundscapes”. The use of field recordings (wind, birdsong, water) suggests a degree of pre-planning but essentially these are wholly improvised performances. Having said that there’s still a sense of structure about many of the Headmen’s pieces that sets them apart from the “squeaky bonk” of much free improvisation. It’s an approach that owes something to the methodology of Fourth Page, whose percussionist Paul May is a close associate of the Headmen and receives a thanks on the album cover. It’s true that the Headmen eschew vocals and adopt a considerably more muscular approach than their more ethereal counterparts but essentially what both bands are trying to create are “improvised songs”.

Opener “A year late and a hundred dollars short” features the axis of Painting, Kallin, Cash, Taylor and Bates and develops from the sound of wind and water to embrace Bates’ temple bell in a brooding, impressionistic opening rich with atmosphere. Painting’s jagged, malevolent guitar chords then usher in a more forceful section featuring engagingly busy drums and rumbling low end piano. There are snatches of solos from Painting, Bates and Taylor but without ever getting into orthodox jazz territory. Nevertheless this is powerful, propulsive music with a strong collective ethos, challenging, but with enough rhythmic and melodic focus for the listener to hang on to. Having said that following a scything Painting guitar solo the music subsequently enters into more abstract territory before the piece finally resolves itself.

Bass guitarist Karl Blake augments the group on “Dread fluid” which develops out of a swirling fog of synths, guitar effects and spooky trombone. Cash eventually sets up a groove around which Bates on synth, Taylor on trombone and Painting at the guitar interact, draping dark textures over the rhythmic framework. All enjoy moments in the spotlight, but again this isn’t conventional jazz soloing, the sense of collective improvisation remains strong. The title seems apt, the music is both fluid and unsettling and climaxes with a excoriating passage dominated by heavily treated guitar and powerful drums. 

“Voltaire’s stands watch” broods and simmers threateningly before building to a searing intensity above Cash’s insistent rhythms. A passage of seriously unhinged guitar opens up more obviously free improv territory before the emphasis shifts again to embrace a soaring solo from Painting and a further statement from Taylor above something approaching an orthodox rhythmic pattern. The piece resolves itself with a gentler dialogue between guitar and trombone.

A different version of the group appears on “Pacific and black five” (could the title be a reference to seam locomotives I wonder?)  with the core trio of Painting, Kallinn and Cash joined by Alex Gray on piano and Julia Doyle on double bass. The latter’s rich bowing and plucking contrasts well with Kallin’s fretless electric bass sounds. Elsewhere Gray plays both inside and outside the lid and Painting combines well with the pianist on a piece initially driven by the bustle of Cash’s drums. A short drum feature fragments the track and leads to a more atmospheric and impressionistic coda.

The album concludes with the epic group improvisation “Scratched beyond help”, a twenty two minute tour de force performed by Painting, Bates, Taylor, Kallinn, Cash and Blake. The intro includes examples of extended techniques and the whole piece is imbued with an other worldly post apocalyptic feel with Bates’ synths playing a prominent role in the often abrasive and unsettling sound texturing (for the purpose of this album it’s probably best to consider Bates as a fully fledged member of the band). Painting, who deploys his various guitar effects cogently throughout the album, is also key in shaping the band’s sound and it’s left to Taylor to provide a humanising voice on the trombone as Cash’s drums provide momentum and drive the band forward. Despite the improvised nature of the performances there’s remarkably little noodling on this record, Cash is always quick to pick up on any longueurs or slackness and is constantly urging his colleagues on to the next thing. This is the most obvious “live recording” of the collection with background voices and noises sometimes audible but there’s also a palpable sense of excitement when the band do build up a head of steam. Once the band are done with providing the soundtrack of the apocalypse the piece ends quietly with the sound of sampled birdsong collected by Painting in Picardy, the location of so many war graves.

The various members of Horseless Headmen come from a variety of musical backgrounds and many different elements can be detected in the band’s uncompromising but always focussed improvising. Jazz rubs shoulders with various branches of avant rock, a smattering of dub, and all points in between. It can be unsettling and abrasive and often isn’t for the faint-hearted but there’s a steely resolve about the music and an underlying sense of structure that certainly helped to maintain my interest. Like so much music that lies broadly within the parameters of “improv” “The Whole Nine Yards” isn’t necessarily a record I’d want to listen to all the time but I’d certainly relish the opportunity of seeing this hard hitting collection of improvisers in a live situation. 

blog comments powered by Disqus