GoGo Penguin hadn’t set foot in the country for a while, and has just begun to present on stage the songs from its excellent homonymous album launched almost two years ago. The wait was worth it, as the British band delivered a performance to match their fresh, unmistakable jazz.
Posted at 9:00 a.m.
Atomised and Signal in the Noisetaken from their most recent album, allow you to grasp the essence of GoGo Penguin from the first notes, led by Nick Blacka’s double bass and Chris Illingworth’s piano, which exchange melodies and rhythmic parts with disconcerting fluidity. bardo, the next, introduces us to the genius of Illingworth, who muffles the resonance of some of the strings of his piano and then assigns them digital effects, literally transforming the sound of his instrument. He and his colleague Blacka also allow themselves to use loops of certain passages of their playing, in the service of a decompartmentalized and unique music.
However, GoGo Penguin remains incredibly digestible, very accessible in fact, because the trio stays away from the classic jazz formula which consists of alternating themes and sometimes disconcerting improvisations.
Here, the structure is that of pop songs, the solos of the talented musicians always falling within a well-contained melodic form.
With Wave of Decayone of four new songs released each month since March and which are grouped together in a new mini-album unveiled this Friday, Illingworth allows himself to play on his synthesizer, bringing even more electro textures which find their rightful place in the organic case woven by the double bass and the nervous drums of Jon Scott.
Public at the rendezvous
GoGo Penguin will have finally saved some of the best tracks from its album for the end v2.0, which was named in 2014 among the finalists of the Mercury Music Prize, a prestigious award given to the best British album of the year. Listening to Whisper, it is easy to understand why; welcomed with a few felt cries from the spectators, the piece allows us to see what wood the three musicians are warming up, in their solos, but also in the completely delirious syncopated finale, causing the crowd to jump up at the end of the room.
Another young British trio took charge of the appetizer, Mammal Hands delivering an inspired performance, especially with the piece Kudufrom the second album Floa. The public reacted with vigor at the end of the bewitching flight of Jordan Smart’s saxophone, supported by the rhythmic piano of Nick Smart and sublimated by the boosted drums of Jesse Barrett. However, the formula is repeated in almost every piece, revealing less originality and audacity than their contemporaries of GoGo Penguin, who will have branded the first evening of the 2022 Jazz Festival at Place des Arts.