The second album from Sebastian Rochford's group of young London anarcho-punk-groove-electronica-free improv upsetters is an even more thrilling and momentous affair than its predecessor, last year's highly acclaimed Dim Lit. It's the most radical, invigorating and heartening Britjazz album to be released so far this year and, even though it is still only March, it's certain to be close to the top of many end-of-year Best Albums lists in nine months time.
It is, perhaps, the sound of the future—one of them anyway—and boy, does it work. Basically uncategorisable, Polar Bear reflects the mega-eclectic, post-modern listening tastes of Rochford (who wrote all the tunes) and his colleagues, moving with equal enthusiasm through Björk and Beethoven, Pig Destroyer, Coltrane and his tenor legacy, Monk, Stockhausen and the ghost of Rip Rig & Panic. With some of Kurt Weill's crudely syncopated, rough edged, fairground-meets-cabaret pit band arranging aesthetic thrown in for good measure.
It is jazz all right, 100% and no mistake, but with bongfuls of left-field electronica and mutant, rocked-up and pfunkified groove spicing the free-improv centred mix. There's not a lot of concern with harmonic development—hey, the band is led by a drummer, and apart from Jonny Phillips's guest guitar on "Beartown" there are no chord instruments—but for aberrant and off-centre rhythmic and melodic development you've hit the muthalode.
Most excitingly perhaps, Polar Bear has reclaimed the in-the-moment, radical, "out" attitude that jazz pretty much invented, back in the day, and then has progressively lost, at least in some strands, as it has become an increasingly repertory-bound, cautious, and conservative music. Held On The Tips Of Fingers by contrast explodes with passion and exuberance, a hunger for risk and adventure, and full-on and revelling-in-it spontaneity.
With Polar Bear, Rochford—who with Pete Wareham and Tom Herbert also appears in that other great London zeitgeist band, Acoustic Ladyland—says: "My main aim is to make music that sounds new and has feeling." Polar Bear has done both things, and shown the way to a brighter future at the same time. The winner of an AAJ Stone Delight Award for joyful outness from start to finish. - Chris May / allboutjazz.com
ike its highly acclaimed predecessor, Dim Lit, this set by the young British group Polar Bear showcases material by drummer Seb Rochford. It explores a mix of trance-like, long-note music over eerie, hypnotic grooves, full-on electronics and free-improv, melancholic songs, punky thrashes and some of the best two-sax conversation to be heard on the current scene.
Typically for Polar Bear, the set opens with a dreamlike slow walk, underpinned by Rochford's rich and evocative drumming. But, unlike most ambient albums, strange things soon start happening. Castanet-like handclaps trigger long, guttural sax lines; electronics fly across the speakers and give way to free-blasting; and odd, pogo-dancing themes over bumpy drumming sound like punk interpretations of Parisian cafe music.
Little wonder, then, that the title track features an affronted-sounding tenor-sax line over bleary harmonising, while Argumentative sounds exactly like its title suggests and the slow King of Aberdeen is a folksy lament with hypnotic harmonies.
All in all, a highly creative successor to the equally distinctive Dim Lit. - John Fordham
Such was the brilliance of Polar Bear’s Held On The Tips Of Fingers, the band’s second release, it almost won the 2005 Mercury Music Prize. Not only the most gifted jazz drummer of his generation, bandleader Sebastian Rochford crafted sublimely original chamber music. A stylistic crossroads where folk, avant-jazz, electronica and raw punk co-existed, Rochford’s music was aptly called “the sound of the future” even though it betrayed a love of Ellington, Monk and, yes, Napalm Death. Held On The Tips Of Fingers twisted in digital trickery to a frontline of heavyweight tenor saxophonists, dazzling with folksy anthems such as ‘Bear Town’ or the drum ’n’ bass drenched ‘Fluffy’. Groundbreaking, it gave young British jazz bands the guts to label themselves like rock bands and to stretch beyond their comfort zones. - jazzwise.com
Tracks
1. Was Dreaming You Called You Dissapeared I Slept
2. Beartown
3. Fluffy (I Want You)
4. To Touch The Red Brick
5. Held On The Tips Of Fingers
6. Argumentative
7. The King Of Aberdeen
8. Your Eyes The Sea
9. Life That Ends Too Soon
SEBASTIAN ROCKFORD drums
TOM HERBERT double bass
MARK LOCKHEART tenor saxophone
PETE WARAHAM tenor saxophone
JONNY PHILLIPS guitar (2)
JOE BENTLY trombone (2)
EMMA SMITH violins
HANNAH MARSHALL cello (3)
INGRID LAUBROCK tenor saxophone (3, 9)
All music composed by Sebastian Rockford
Rub Recordings – RRCDLP 05 (Belgium)