JAZZ
BY ANDY COWAN
Flock
★★★★
Flock
STRUT. CD/DL/LP
Five heavyweights of the new British jazz scene step into the unknown.
First brought together remotely last year, Flock boast a singular group chemistry at odds with its members’ other endeavours. Their slow-release debut rests on the hypnotic percussive bedrock of drum/tabla meister Sarathy Korwar and gyil titan Bex Burch (Vula Viel), allowing the keyboard atmospherics of Danalogue (The Comet Is Coming) and Al MacSween (Maisha) free rein as baritone saxophonist Tamar Osborn (Collocutor) bears the melodic weight. Her haunted horns tangle in the ethereal synth mists of Prepare To Let Go and the disquieting shape-shifting of Bold Dream, before developing distinct heads of steam, but are eclipsed by the ebbing sonorities of How Many Are One and quirky meditations of It’s Complicated – searching efforts just shy of 15 minutes apiece. More than the sum of its parts, Flock is never less than intriguing.