Mads Matthias - Downy cheek

Mads Mathias - saxophone

Peter Rosendal - piano

Mads Mathias - Vocal and saxophone
Peter Rosendal - piano (& flugelbone)
Ferg Ireland - bass
Chris Higginbottom - drums

Venue - Royal Festival Hall Foyer, South Bank Centre, London
Date - 16th October 2015
Current Album - Free Falling (Calibrated)

Mads Mathias next UK dates - February 2016

Friday 5th - The Cinnamon Club, Manchester
Saturday 6th - Southport Melodic Jazz Club at The Royal Clifton Hotel 11am
Sunday 7th - Seven Jazz in Chapel Allerton, Leeds LS7 1.30 - 4pm...
Friday 12th - Lighthouse Poole
Saturday 13th - Pizza Express Jazz Club - 7pm
Saturday 13th - Pizza Express Jazz Club - 10pm
Sunday 14th - Pizza Express Music Lounge Maidstone

Chris Higginbottom
- drums

Gilt edge jazz from blonde tousled Mads Mathias, half rough cheek, half downy. Ferg Ireland the best nose in jazz bass, a symmetry with his instrument. Elegant and beautiful. Tea For Two, slack jaw Peter Rosendal mouthing the dexterity beside Higginbottom.

The South Bank doing what it does best, mixing respectables and those walking in from Thames side concrete. Hundreds of faces, happy free people.

Up and down What Is Time, the gentleness of toes on their tips leaving room for Rosendal's piano. He treads softly, more spring carpet like than the crackling leaves that currently surround. Glide, arch, swirl and turn.

Ferg Ireland - Bass

Conversational swing, Free Falling. Playful run up, run the tapper. Mathias is a wagtail, flirting, buoyant. Drums cut against the pillow filling, the eider cushion.

Full mouthed, plummy, juicy Labour of Love. Slide of oiled wood on Nordic grain, transatlantic adrift.

Round ball, contented roller, Fool for Love. Delicious piano snatch, a slice, a trick and waft. Knees high in a crisp step.

Sophisticated in and out clubs, The Henpecked Man, made of droplets, small colourful splashes. No killings, no artic belt deaths. Fresh spruce and always tasteful.

AL.

Nomad Soul Collective - Anthemic glows

Henry Spencer - Trumpet



Although moved from the Southbank's Front Room into their into their not unsubstantial back parlour, the Nomad Soul Collective made the most of their wandering credentials to take up residence in the Clore Ballroom last week (23/01/2015).

Henry Lawry - Piano/Vocals

 It is one of London's great public spaces, filled with a mixture of music lovers, end-of-week johnnies, captivated toddlers and an ever rotating carousel of bodies escaping either the inclement weather or meeting new friends. The swell and heave of the crowd  reminded us of Nomad Soul Collective's Murmuration, the tune which propelled them to viral success. Tonight it was but one composition amongst eleven original tunes.



Jamie Beaumont - Bass

Alongside the regular NSC cast list of Emmett Glynn (guitar/vocals), Henry Lawry (piano/vocals), Jamie Beaumont (bass), Kiran Bhatt (drums) and Samuel Eagles (saxophone) was a bolstered brass section that included both Henry Spencer (trumpet) and Tom White (trombone).


Emmett Glynn -
guitar/vocals

One of the constant themes in the Nomad Soul Collective's portfolio is the balance between a Human's influence and Nature. Their pace has an organic ebb which unfurls like a awakening fern, leaving the mind to wander at its leisure, yet the instrumentation possesses a modernity that anchors you in the Now.




Samuel Eagles -
Saxophone

Origins is one of many tunes starting with the air of a lazy day, perhaps in a city park. A stretch of grass that catches you in its green while all about you is hot yellows and angry blues. Samuel Eagles' saxophone turns up the thermostat while bodies bubble and buzz. This is a people tune, a pulse, a force, it is for people who attract people. This magnetism was obviously working in the Clore Ballroom as the audience swelled.

Lucinda John-Duarte

Forever brought Lucinda John-Duarte to the stage for this evolving tune, its petals and leaves continually opening in invitation. An understated honesty pervaded the majority of NSC's performance and this was no exception. Excuse my sparse realisation of the Holy Milk's singer but she lasted for but this one moment, and not for longer as the song suggested.

Kiran Bhatt - drums

Into the Ocean was not the kind of tune you dive into, if anything, it helps you glide above the inviting water. This is music for the third eye in all of us, the third person perhaps, the aid that helps us to look at ourselves from a higher vantage point. It was emphasised frequently but particularly on this tune by Henry Lawry's scudding piano.

Tom White - Trombone

On the whole the Nomad Soul Collective puffed us up with optimism, especially the aforementioned Murmuration, with guitar and bass which ruled like gods whilst the brass literally and metaphorically added the gilt, the anthemic glow that bathed us in gold. In contrast Solstice let a discordant wind cut through the Ballroom's doors. It spoke of uninviting paths, undecided days and a half-finished, half-eaten malaise. As the trumpet of Henry Spencer looked into the stage lights, the weak shadow from his fingers played across his own face. You couldn't help but think of the shapes made by naked branches as they dance in the low horizon sun.

AL.

Face in the crowd -
Steve Marchant