EYOT - Real World Studios

Dejan Ilijić

EYOT
Dejan Ilijić – piano
Slađan Milenović – guitar
Miloš Vojvodić – drums
Marko Stojiljković – bass

11th November 2019
Real World Studios, Box, Wiltshire, UK

Slađan Milenović

Balkan ambient jazz quartet EYOT were back in the studio last week to record a new album under the guidance of producer Jim Barr (Get The Blessing / Portishead). This will be their fifth album after the successes of Horizon (2010), Drifters (2013), Similarity (2014) and Innate (2017).

Miloš Vojvodić

Under the leadership of pianist and composer Dejan Ilijić (brother of the free spirited experimental artist and performer Alen Ilijić) EYOT spent two days at Peter Gabriel's Real World Studios before heading to a secret studio location to add the final brushstrokes to their new work. They finished off their week with a live performance at The Exchange in Bristol alongside Get The Blessing. Review here on B24/7.

Marko Stojiljković

The Serbian band from Nis are no strangers to UK shores after appearing at the Jazz Cafe, Camden in 2014. Yet it was a curious welcome party for the globetrotting musicians as they navigated the FA Cup fans of local football Chippenham Town before reaching the safety of Real World Studios a few miles away in Box. The first tune to be recorded was Savanna or Savannah and what followed was an epic journey over two days through another six compositions. EYOT's music has always referenced nature, an expansive sound with wide horizons and knotted woods to catch the mind. As Jim Barr, Olli Jacobs (sound engineer) and myself heard the first notes of this album take root we looked out onto the rampant autumnal colours in the garden beyond.

Jim Barr

Get The Blessing - Astronautilus album launch

Pete Judge

Get The Blessing
Jake McMurchie - Saxophone
Pete Judge - Trumpet
Jim Barr - Bass
Clive Deamer - Drums

Venue - Match&Fuse Festival, Rich Mix, London
Date - 16th October 2015
Current Album - Astronautilus (Naim Jazz Records naimcd221) 

Jake McMurchie

See them -

27.11.2015 La Source, Fontaine, FR

05.12.2015 The Goods Shed, Stroud, UK
08.12.2015 Duc Des Lombards, Paris, FR
10.12.2015 Jamboree, Barcelona, ES
11.12.2015 Sala Clamores, Madrid, ES
12.12.2015 Sala Clamores, Madrid, ES
13.12.2015 El Almacén de Little Bobby, Santander, ES
14.12.2015 Las Armas, Zaragoza, ES

Bristolian 4 piece launch new album Astronautilus at the Match&Fuse festival.

Jim Barr

Funeral fires, burning slowly, Get The Blessing burn with more purpose, a slow violence with a latent or undiscovered promise.

Imposing, yes, but always as though they are a step further back from the edge of the stage, an invitation to bring the audience forward, waiting for the people to commit.

Hip Judge and McMurchie twitch their anthemic muscles, flexing like two body builders at a meet, glistening with a ping. Judge forever opens the door for us, leaving the windows wide, he is the accomplice to our raid. The wind rushes through, maybe (again) think of slow movements, not as soft as 'Un homme et une femme' but more the darker passages of 'In the mood for love'.

Clive Deamer

Rib cage and elbows, Deamer is a walking Vanitas tableau, the momento mori of the band, he has the look of an undead king, both regal and macabre. Barr is always the presence in the background, the unexplained, the watcher in the forest. It is because of the bowed head, and the eyes that watch out through the lowered brow.

My quick drawings are never heavy enough to convey the presence of Get The Blessing. Film does it best, and the live visuals from John Minton did it even better.

The girls screamed for McMurchie, adoration from the JM fan club being the strangest of juxtapositions.

AL.

Tammy Payne - Viva Outsider

Marko Miladinović artwork

New York label, Ninety and Nine records, have done it again. If their musical releases are as true and reflective of their ethos then they will be an innovative force for years to come. Their latest CD release (27/10/2014) is from Tammy Payne, whose album art has been created by Marko Miladinović. The name may be familiar from his work with Serbian foursome EYOT who recently released their Similarity album. Miladinović's isn't a one-trick pony, his broad portfolio includes forays into photography, art and design. He currently works at the Centre for Culture and Arts in his hometown of Aleksinac, Serbia where he was born in 1981. He has won several awards for his painting and photography, with over 20 international exhibitions under his belt.


Jim Barr - Get the blessing

Tammy Payne is a chameleon. Under the wings of Gilles Peterson she released “Take Me Now” in 1991 on the Talkin Loud label but this wasn't where her talents were destined to land. An expansive journey continued for the next 20 years, working with Sissi, Bristol sound originators Smith And Mighty, Boca 45 and Jukes. My ears pricked up when she created the earthy album of covers/standards, 'Don't Think Twice', on Edition Records in 2010. The album included drummer Dylan Howe ( The Blockheads ),bassist Jim Barr (Get The Blessing ), Dan Moore on keyboards ( Pee Wee Ellis, Andy Shepherd ) and Neil Smith. The organ work of Dan Moore is worth hearing alongside Tammy Payne's emotionally threaded voice.



Tammy Payne

As you would imagine the title track on today's release, 'Viva Outsider' is also the inspiration for Marko Miladinović's artwork. Miladinović has always had a strong connection to the landscape and here he also plays with one of his favourite toys, Scale. The topographical mountain range that is unfurled beneath us is isolated by a desert world around it. Although this talks of vastness and height it could just as easy be a crumpled sheet of paper destined for the bin. Discarded words, too painful for the everyday eye to read.

Tammy Payne sees the artwork from a bird's eye view,
"I like the way the "outsider" has been elevated to the position of a creature that has an aerial view - the bird. This empowers the outsider and gives her the power of flight, a good view, and the feeling she can circle the area in a predatory fashion."

Marko Miladinović

The title track 'Viva Outsider' mirrors the soaring prairie, a vastness that is exaggerated by Payne's laconic vocals. Although there are Americana vistas in this work, the pulsing unease is one of Lynchian proportions. Planting us firmly in this current time of disintegration. In aonther track, 'Some People', you hear the iron fence that keeps us from each other's predatory instincts, the heat from the yard that is relentless.

The foreignness of 'Viva Outsider' seeps into the bones of this recording. It is the measured pace that you have to adopt in warmer climes. Those hotter territories where passions are barely contained and you sense emotional eruptions are imminent. Yet everything is hidden behind closed doors.

Marko Miladinović's Art

Tammy Payne told me about the journey from her Tamco work to this current creation.
"We tried a few songs with the same wild, raucous feeling as Tamco, but my voice was lost. We stripped it right down to just voice and guitar. I have a dream of putting string arrangements on top of this one day. Although ultimately we built up the sound with the whole band, we made sure the focus was the singer and the song."

Find out more about Tammy Payne at - http://www.tammypayne.co.uk/

Viva Outsider is released today 27/10/2014 on Ninety and Nine Records.
Buy it at -
http://www.ninetyandninerecords.com/

Listen for yourself -


AL.

Get The Blessing - Antimatters

Jim Barr - Bass

Black suited, white shirts, focussed demeanours, they meant business in their own oblique kind of way. Get The Blessing launched their fourth album 'Lope and Antilope' at the Jazz Café earlier this month (05/03/2014). The healthy throb of the audience was as black (attired) and thick (in numbers) as Jim Barr's lush beard. Darkened even further by the gothic wonder of EYOT who had played moments before in support.

Clive Deamer
Drums

It was a long list of 14 tunes that ebbed and flowed throughout the night, the fluidity of the performance being it's strongest theme. Amongst me there were a few who were disappointed that they entered without flame coloured cellophane masks. This malaise was quickly dispelled by a disorientating journey through unpredictable compositions and pulsing beats.



Jake McMurchie -
Saxophones

The Bass spoke loudest on the opening exchanges, the second 'Antilope' let us descend into the depths and Jim Barr was a dominant figure despite alternating in and out of the shadows. He is every inch a villainous looking figure, the most gangsterish of the quartet, if he was to add a few inches to the waistband and wear a scarlet cummerbund he would be legendary Albert Spica of Thief, Cook, Wife, Lover fame. Although I imagine he does not thrust forks into women's faces or his enemies into dog faeces.

Pete Judge - Trumpet

The third tune heralded a theme like a Spy Thriller and the saxophone of Jake McMurchie caught the imagination as though he had pushed Lalo Shifrin down a set of steep stairs. Whodunnit? It was McMurchie, and again on 'Quiet' and impressively during a buzzing 'Low Earth Orbit' with it's pulsating roll against an exotic landscape.


Clive Deamer was straight and powerful throughout and was hard to capture on paper despite being the fulcrum, rhythmically and physically (on stage) for the music to rise.

Adrian Utley - Guitar

Adrian Utley immediately made an impression when he was introduced for the fourth tune but it was the subsequent 'Luposcope' where he bowed his way into the audiences psyche. The result was a hollowness that was as attractive and compelling as a seaside town out of season. Secrets discovered when alone can sometimes be the most deeply felt. Even though I stood next to jazz-man Steve Marchant and introduced myself to three McMurchie groupies Rachel, Julia and Jacqui it was very much a voyage of introspection and for losing oneself in the folds of Get The Blessing's warping melodies.

John Hegley - Poet/Narration

Before I disappear up my own arse let me cling onto something much more tangible. Past the night's halfway point Get The blessing were joined onstage by poet John Hegley who musically narrated 'Alphabetically Disorder', complete with dance moves that Basil Fawlty must have practiced before the mirror in his youth. The incongruity of Hegley's witty words and the aforementioned choreography against GTB's moody loops was delicious.

Going by Get The Blessing's performance, 'Lope and Antilope' will provide us simply with the space and the process that catches the mind. Not easily digestible in one night and worth more than one sitting, it needs to be heard and to be given the chance to fire the imagination.

AL.