When Binker and Moses first surfaced six years ago they did a gig in a place called Brilliant Corners, a Japanese bar-restaurant on the Kingsland Road in Dalston, east London, during a Jazz Kissaten. That evening began with a DJ set by Darrel Sheinman who runs King's Cross label Gearbox spinning a selection of Blue Note vinyl, drawn from the likes of Baby Face Willette’s Face to Face, Ike Quebec’s Soul Samba and McCoy Tyner’s Asante, and later, this was ahead of the release of Dem Ones, Binker and Moses' inspired saxophone and drums-duelling free-jazz album, the duo began with ‘Black Ave Maria'. Its gently unravelling theme repeated and was elaborated upon in a myriad of ways. Binker quoted Sonny Rollins in passing but more he generally hovered in the Locrian mode Coltrane-like domain with all its grandeur of expression and engagement later dipping into Ascension territory as the sound of a siren by coincidence drifted in from the road.
'Feed Infinite' was recorded in the west country at Real World, one of the UK's most prestigious recording studios, and adds a contribution from Partikel bassist Max Luthert with electronics and tape loops engineered by Hugh Padgham famed for his ''gated drum'' innovation heard on the Phil Collins classic 'In the Air Tonight' (1981) that he produced. So the question desperate to get out rumbles up: is what Luthert does and the alchemy of Padgham's mix simpatico and relevant to the B&M vision?
Yes. Because what these elements provide after the woozy opening whistling wind chirrup to give throughout an illusion of space and in its haze add a backdrop narrative of their own microscopically within the droney wash. Right at the end there's also a Kraftwerk-like touch which comes out of the blue. Think rain lightly wetting your shoulder, you hardly notice that wetness. It's there but you may instead be looking at the foreboding sky. You hear not see the heavens here and it may not be a sunshiney day at all. Binker adds diagonal lines and Moses paints the subterranean duct pipes and wiring, the tangled ropes and netting some of which make it to the surface so Binker in this Coltranian universe can do things with it himself. Weighing in at 8-and-a-half minutes there are no longueurs.
There is a poetry, meaning a kind of momentousness, in 'Feed Infinite' in when the sound is created it is destroyed, that stepping into the same river twice is utterly impossible and is only a fluke that it happened to be recorded in the first place and even more impossible that a universe of individuals can get to experience it. Two versions of the track are available. Don't go for the edited shorter one although the essence is there. SG
Moses Boyd, top left, and Binker Golding. Photo: Gearbox on Bandcamp
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