Reviews that mention Sam Andreae
September 1, 2018
A Glorious Monster
Luminous Label LU010
Three years on the hard-hitting Sloth Racket quintet is refining its approach to Free Jazz without losing any of the power that characterized the band’s earlier music. One of the rare ensembles that overcome the archaic London verses the-rest-of-the-UK divide, the quintet matches timbres from baritone saxophonist Cath Roberts from the British capital with four players who live in Manchester or further out: bassist Seth Bennett, alto saxophonist Sam Andreae, drummer Johnny Hunter and guitarist Anton Hunter. During A Glorious Monster’s four mostly fast-paced tracks, contrasts are set up between rumbling smears from the baritone saxophone and lighter flutter tonguing from the alto saxophonist, which sometimes erupt into Eric Dolphy-like juttering runs. Meanwhile Bennett and especially J. Hunter set up a squirming concrete-like rhythm mass that is consistently pierced by singular flanges or stabs from the guitarist. MORE
October 1, 2016
Triptych
Luminous label LU 002
Heavy Beauty
Propaganda
Ava 017
Contemporary photographs of Russia’s Nicholas II and Great Britain’s George V show them to resemble one another so strongly that they could have been mistaken for twins. But the personalities and concepts of the autocratic final Romanov, executed by the Bolsheviks and the constitutional monarch of the United Kingdom who lived to a ripe old age couldn’t have been more different. So it is with these bands. Both seem to take their cues from hard-core aggregations like The Thing which are as much about Metal and Noise as Free Music, and both have similar personnel, heavy on guitar, bass, drums and saxophones. But the similarities end there. MORE