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Inner Space Music

Five Animal Dances

Spherical Records SPR001

Inner Space Music comprises leader/composer, Loz Speyer (trumpet, flugelhorn), Chris Biscoe (alto saxophone, clarinet), bassist Julie Walkington and drummer Seb Rochford, and on this ten-track album, recorded in November 2004, the band occupies musical territory that will be familiar to anyone who’s heard early-1960s Ornette Coleman or (closer to home) the cruelly underrated Buckley-Batchelor band.

Relatively straightforward heads ­ strident melodic fragments, or lengthier, more discursive lines ­ provide the springboard for spirited, garrulous improvisation from the flaringly brilliant, chattering trumpet of Speyer and the multi-textured reeds of Biscoe (all slithery querulousness one minute, gruff dignity another, declamatory urgency the next), all intelligently underpinned by the steady bass of Walkington and the briskly scurrying or tautly percussive Rochford.

Centred on a suite of pieces inspired by Speyer’s interest in the eponymous Five Animals Qigong practice (designed to cultivate ‘pure Chi energy in body, mind and spirit’), this is wonderfully vigorous, sprightly music, packed with unexpected felicities of texture and timbre, and infused with bustling, fiercely interactive energy. Recommended.