Kevin Figes

“Wallpaper Music III”

(Pig Records – PIG20)

Kevin Figes – woodwinds, voice, Brigitte Beraha – voice, Jim Blomfield – keyboards, Ashley John Long – electric & acoustic bass, Mark Whitlam – drums

This latest album in the “Wallpaper Music” series from Bristol based saxophonist, composer and lyricist Kevin Figes features the same line up that appeared on the first and second recordings in the series. The debut is reviewed elsewhere on this site but I’ve yet to hear he second instalment. The first “Wallpaper Music” album, from which much of the following biographical detail has been sourced, can be found here;

Prior to the Wallpaper project Figes led his own quartet for more than a decade and has recorded a total of five albums in the classic sax /keys/ bass / drums format beginning in 2008 with “Circular Motion” for Edition Records followed by “Hometime” (2009), Tables and Chairs” (2013), “Weather Warning” (2016) and “Changing Times” (2020), all issued on Figes’ own Pig Records imprint.  All of these have delivered an exciting and interesting blend of fine playing and intelligent writing, drawing upon a wide range of musical influences. I have heard them all and both “Tables and Chairs”  and “Changing Times” are reviewed elsewhere on this site.

Figes has also fronted an octet, an expanded edition of his regular group with the addition of tenor saxophonist Nick Dover, vocalists Emily Wright and Cathy Jones and second drummer Lloyd Haines. This line up released the album “Time Being” on Pig Records in 2014.

In 2012 Figes was part of the more fusion orientated quartet 4 Sided Triangle, alongside Mike Outram (guitar), Dan Moore (keyboards) and Daisy Palmer (drums). This line up released an eponymous album on the Pig imprint. Review here;
https://www.thejazzmann.com/reviews/review/4-sided-triangle

He has also performed with singer Cathy Jones’ latin band Balanca and has appeared as a sideman with pianist Dave Stapleton’s Quintet and as a guest with the Japanese pianist Atsuko Shimada. Figes also enjoyed a fruitful creative alliance with the late, great Keith Tippett, playing in the Bristol born pianist’s Tapestry Orchestra and also with Tippett’s Octet.

Others with whom Figes has worked include saxophonist Pee Wee Ellis, trombonist Fred Wesley and trumpeter Bobby Shew. He is also a member of guitarist Denny Ilett’s Jimi Hendrix inspired Electric Lady Big Band.

Away from jazz Figes has performed the music of TV theme composer Barry Gray and appeared with the Bristol based This Is The Kit,  the musical vehicle of singer and songwriter Kate Stables.

As an educator Figes is currently a teacher of jazz saxophone at Bristol University and also teaches at schools and workshops.
Figes is primarily an alto saxophonist and the majority of his quartet albums have been strongly influenced by the New York based alto saxophonist, composer, improviser and producer David Binney.

As befitted its title “Changing Times” brought different influences to bear, whilst also signalling something of a ‘return to roots’. Figes first studied the saxophone under the tutelage of former Soft Machine saxophonist Elton Dean and it was these sessions, combined with his consequent exposure to the music of Soft Machine, that first precipitated Figes’ graduation from rock to jazz.

But the ‘Softs’ are also indelibly associated with progressive rock and it was the hinterland between jazz and ‘prog’ that Figes began to explore on the excellent “Changing Times” with ‘Canterbury’ bands such as Soft Machine, Caravan and Hatfield & The North all serving as discernible influences.

At the time Figes also cited the influence of Henry Cow, another band sometimes co-opted into the so called ‘Canterbury Scene’. With regard to the music to be heard on “Changing Times” Figes commented;
“My aim is to produce personal music in a fearless and evolving way. So now, I’m moving on again. Henry Cow, a whole world of contemporary classical – Witold Lutoslawski, Luciano Berio etc. - and the delights of free improvisation are beckoning and there are no limitations. It’s all music after all”.

The first “Wallpaper Music” album took the innovations of “Changing Times” a stage further with the music of Henry Cow becoming an even more significant source of inspiration as Figes explained at the time;
“I was particularly inspired by the band Henry Cow and its offshoots and also a lot of contemporary classical music, Stockhausen, Berio etc. I wanted to use bigger structures with sections that did not repeat and that were precisely written, contrasted with sections that were completely freely improvised. I also heard the voice as an integral part of that and enjoyed trying to express myself through the text. Other ideas involved using more sounds (saxes, flutes, keyboard sounds, spoken word) and inventing my own scales, harmonies and rhythmic structures”.

This third instalment in the Wallpaper Music series continues to draw inspiration from Henry Cow and from Robert Wyatt as Figes presents a kind of ‘song cycle’ with seven of the nine pieces featuring lyrics, with all of the words written by Figes. These lyrics are by turns frank, cryptic, personal, gnomic and oblique. They are given voice by Brigitte Beraha, one of the UK’s most distinctive and adventurous vocalists. London based Beraha joins a band of instrumentalists from Wales and the English West Country as part of a closely knit ensemble that continues to mine the interface between jazz and prog rock of the ‘Canterbury’ variety.

Opener “Fair Weather” features Beraha sounding remarkably similar to Amanda Parsons of Hatfield and National Health fame, her high register, very English sounding vocals blending with the Softs like sounds of Long’s electric bass and Blomfield’s keyboards. The piece is punctuated by ‘telephone like’ sound effects that the press release describes as an “analogue radio collage”, plus the occasional saxophonic squall from the leader.

The following “The Big Flood” also makes use of ‘found sounds’,  including what sounds like an Andean street band. Beraha’s singing of the cryptic but evocative lyrics is augmented by Figes’ sax soloing, his horn subjected to a variety of electronic effects. There’s some terrific wordless vocalising too as Beraha and Figes trade ideas.

“Modern Times” exhibits more of a punk mentality with pounding rhythms underpinning Beraha’s singing of a lyric railing against the built in obsolescence of so much modern digital technology and of our collective reliance on it.

Not that retreating into nature offers any solace, the words and music of “Into The Woods” are dark and gothic, with Beraha’s vocals accompanied by funereally paced piano and eerie, unsettling sound effects and extended instrumental techniques.

Long’s electric bass introduces the essentially instrumental “February”, combining with Whitlam’s whip smart drumming to create the groove behind a series of lively sax and wordless vocal exchange, plus the spacey swirling of Blomfield’s keyboards. Whitlam is then rewarded with a neatly constructed, but highly vigorous, drum feature played out above an insistent instrumental / vocal vamp.

The sci-fi sounds of Blomfield’s keys underscore Beraha’s singing of the lyrics of “I The King”, before giving way to a more animated ‘instrumental’ section featuring the sounds of wordless voice, sax and keyboards plus a driving odd meter groove. This is followed by a reprise of a lyric that seems to question the value of material wealth and of capitalism itself. Very Henry Cow.

Blomfield’s Hammond introduces the groove driven “Dorian Gray’s Bathroom Cabinet”, the robust organ driven groove underpinning Figes’  treated sax motifs and Beraha’ vocals, wordless at first. Blomfield is also featured as a Hammond soloist before Beraha delivers the lyrics, the words ending what appears to be a six song cycle on a positive note.

The next piece, “Same Time Next Week” is primarily instrumental, with wordless vocals but no lyrics. Inspired by the music of film composer Ennio Morricone it’s suitably cinematic in scope, emerging from a loosely structured intro featuring the sounds of voice, flute, bowed double bass and percussion. The main section has something of a bossa feel with Beraha’s warm toned wordless vocals variously combined with the sounds of saxes, flute,  electric and acoustic keyboards and the infectious and inventive grooves generated by Long and Whitlam. The piece concludes with an evocative return to the free jazz style abstraction of the intro.

The album concludes with “Stranger on A Train”, a groove driven piece featuring some decidedly filthy sounding keyboard noises from Blomfield plus a semi-scripted, semi-improvised spoken word conversation between Beraha and Figes that is variously humorous, insightful and unsettling. The piece is intended to unite the album’s themes of “collaboration, narrative and spontaneity”.

“Wallpaper Music III” represents a very successful addition to the series and if anything is more accessible than the debut (I’ve yet to hear the second instalment). Although Figes wears his ‘Canterbury’ influences on his sleeve the Wallpaper Music series sounds like nothing else around at the moment and Figes has created a contemporary jazz / prog rock sound-world that is very much his own.

The musicians all perform well and are fully attuned to Figes’ vision, but this is far from being a conventional jazz recording with orthodox jazz solos. It won’t be everybody’s cup of tea but for somebody like me who was brought up on the sounds of prog rock  and who retains a great fondness for the ‘Canterbury Sound’ there’s a whole wealth of stuff to enjoy on this consistently interesting and thought provoking album. It’s good to see the lyrics reproduced as part of the album packaging too, being able to read the words certainly adds to the listening experience and to the appreciation of the album as a whole.

“Wallpaper Music III” appears on Figes’ own Pig Records label, an increasingly important outlet not just for his own music, but also for that of other like minded musicians in the Bristol area. Pig Records recordings can be purchased here;
https://pigrecords.bandcamp.com/

 

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