Vipertime, Arise, Hyde Park Book Club Records ***1/2

What's so funny 'bout peace, love, and understanding that's what we want to know: The love child of the far more out there trioVD, the slogan is ''aggro jazz'' the location is Leeds where Arise was recorded and pick of the tracks is easily 'Demise' featuring alto saxophonist Jasmine Myra and the rap from Franz Von on 'Head Up'. Percussion heavy it's a sax, bass guitar, two-drummer/percussionist band. Drummer-percussionist Luke Reddin-Williams - who was on Dave Morecroft's eternally listenable-to punk jazz innovators WorldServiceProject's 2020 release Hiding in Plain Sight - is the best known of the players. The other Vipertimers are tenorist/flautist Ben Powling (also a Hiding in Plain Sight connection) bass guitarist/guitarist Matías Reed and drummer/percussionist George Hall. Guests in addition to Myra who made a splash last year with Horizons on Manchester label Gondwana include drummer Charlie Grimwood. Certainly a groove, party, band for moshing to it seems early on, the tunes aren't amazing - more extended riffs heated up a bit. But and it's a redeeming factor the spirit lifts these up exponentially and the album shows more seriousness and interesting depth later on, particularly on 'The Wise' and 'All Our Heroes Are Dead'. Post-punk spirit and a bass line from Reed on 'Thumb Claw' sends us easily to thoughts of Joy Division's Peter Hook the punkness a strand in the band's DNA. Thundering tribal drums on the title track 'Arise' at the beginning get the party started. On 'Head Up' MC Franz Von provides a vocal that sits alongside what Soweto Kinch can do (head to seven deadly sins album The Legend of Mike Smith for some of Kinch's best rapping) and Vipertime can sound a little like Sons of Kemet but that similarity shouldn't be overemphasised at all.

Hear Vipertime photo: press live at the Crescent in York on Wednesday night - click for details

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Quite moving in places - there's a real heightened sense of passion you get here on alto saxophonist composer Logan Richardson's latest especially in the early part of the album on 'City of Glass'. A powerful and quite intense recording released at the end of April the American Richardson now based in Los Angeles was based in Rome in 2021 when he decided to record an album with analogue synths and key bass. And here he is with US drummer Tommy Crane and Ukrainian guitarist/bassist Igor Osypov who was on Afrofuturism. It's a warts and all sound, there's nothing clinical or hush laden here and it sits well with Crane's own album We're All Improvisers Now on which Richardson also guests. Crane's sprawling maximalism makes sense in terms of the album's quasi-operatic expansiveness Richardson an oratorial magnet all the way through. And if anything it proves a certain match as much with an alt.electronica type of listener as a jazz one. Quite an experimental record - cover art includes an image of Logan as a baby in the early-1980s in his mother's arms - often with a punkish edge you feel Richardson is in a period of flux and this represents a staging post towards his next even more considered breakthrough. An album that has a similar stark and brooding mood sustained pretty much throughout only 'Pearl Gate' is a little lighter and you get a big slab of sound from the three players that certainly gives impact and makes a statement. It's a bit samey but Richardson continues to prove he is a vital presence as an individualist seeking to make a difference and the ecstasy and unburdening is all part of that kaleidoscopic metamorphosis you feel he has in mind as a dweller on the threshold.

Vipertime, Arise, Hyde Park Book Club Records ***1/2

Logan Richardson, Holy Water, WAX Industry ***1/2

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