Aurelius

“Rizes Cave”

“Self Released)

Marcus Penrose – double bass, Will Butterworth – piano, Chris Nickolls – drums

Aurelius is a trio led by the Cornish born, London based double bassist and composer Marcus Penrose.

I first encountered Penrose’s playing back in the period 2008 - 10 when he was part of a variety of line-ups led by pianist and composer Will Butterworth that visited the Welsh Borders on a regular basis. Several live performances by Butterworth led groups featuring Penrose are reviewed elsewhere on this site.

Penrose subsequently appeared on Butterworth’s 2011 trio album “Hereafter”, which is reviewed here;
https://www.thejazzmann.com/reviews/review/hereafter

Penrose and Butterworth subsequently teamed up with saxophonist Seb Pipe in the collaborative project Tournesol, the trio releasing their eponymous debut album in 2012. Review here;
https://www.thejazzmann.com/reviews/review/tournesol-tournesol

Penrose subsequently formed his own trio Aurelius, a group featuring Butterworth and drummer Marco Quarantotto. This line-up released the album “The Process” in 2019. Review here;
https://www.thejazzmann.com/reviews/review/aurelius-the-process

His other current projects include Bezique, a collaboration with cellist Shirley Smart, Inscape, a quartet led by pianist, composer and songwriter Nathan Hayward and the marvellously named Rage Against The Tagine (RATT), led by guitarist Christian Miller. He has also worked with pianist and composer Philip Clouts and with the Scott Willcox Big Band

The long awaited second release from Aurelius is “Rizes Cave”, named for a location on Ithaca. The album introduces a new drummer with Chris Nickolls replacing Quarantotto and joining Penrose and Butterworth. Nickolls playing has previously been heard with pianists Michael Garrick and John Crawford, saxophonists Tommaso Starace, Will Gibson and Duncan Eagles, bassist Shez Raja, trumpeter Mark Perry and vocalist Katriona Taylor among others.

“Rizes Cave” is a fairly short album (thirty one and a half minutes) that includes five compositions, all presumably from the pen of Penrose. When reviewing the trio’s previous album “The Process” I opined that  “there is much to admire about the trio’s delicate group interplay and the absorbing compositions” and these qualities are again very much in evidence again on “Rizes Cave”. The trio’s music has also won the approval of the great American bassist Larry Grenadier, and there’s no higher endorsement than that.

First released in March 2025 the new album commences with the lyrical “Minimata”, a masterclass in the kind of delicate trio interplay mentioned above with Nickolls sensitively deploying brushes throughout and demonstrating his increasing maturity as a player. Penrose’s melodic double bass takes the lead early on before handing over to the gently exploratory piano of Butterworth, who stretches out more expansively, sympathetically supported by his colleagues.

The following “Eighty Five Days” displays similar qualities, a tune centred around a recurring piano motif that gently worms its way into the listener’s consciousness in addition to providing the springboard for the trio’s subsequent melodic explorations. Almost inevitably Butterworth takes the lead but the interplay between piano and double bass is consistently impressive, while Nickolls turns in a finely nuanced performance at the kit, his playing full of delightful small details.

“Ayrmer Cove” is named for a location in Devon, in Penrose’s native South West. The loosely structured introduction features a dialogue between piano and double bass, with Nickolls’ drums subsequently added as the piece gradually begins to evolve into the most intense group discussion the trio have conducted thus far, much of it freely improvised I suspect.

Penrose’s unaccompanied bass figure opens the title track “Rizes Cave”, joined first by drums and then piano. More obviously composed it’s both atmospheric and melodic, evoking a real sense of place. Butterworth’s pianistic explorations are thoughtful and unhurried and the support from bass and drums sensitive and empathic.

The album concludes with “The Conversation”, an apt title for the album as a whole as three way dialogue is very much what Aurelius is all about. Butterworth takes the lead for much of the piece, improvising around an introductory piano figure as Penrose and Nickolls shadow his every move. Towards the close Nickolls’ drums come to the fore as he takes his only solo of the set, a neatly constructed feature that fits neatly into the overall structure of the piece.

As an album “Rizes Cave” builds upon the success of “The Process” and exhibits similar virtues with the focus again on intelligent and absorbing writing and the finely honed interplay of the trio members. There are relatively few individual solos and the emphasis is very much on the trio as an entity. Penrose adopts a particularly ego-less approach, there are hardly any true bass solos, yet his playing and composing is at the very heart of the music. Aurelius have developed a very distinctive group aesthetic, which, although a little low key at times, makes for interesting and rewarding listening.

 

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