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.

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.