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Tango Siempre

Only Human

Galileo GMC031

Astor Piazzolla's nuevo tango (chef d'oeuvre 1986's Tango: Zero Hour) is the musical base from which Tango Siempre – bassist Richard Pryce, violinist Ros Stephen, pianist Jonathan Taylor, joined on this album by drummer Milo Fell and bandoneon player Paolo Russo å operate, but they function in a similar way to a jazz band, utilising Piazzolla's instrumentation and approach but casting their stylistic net widely, to draw in everything from tango and milonga (an early tango style with Spanish roots) to Bach and Portishead.

Fell, indeed, brings occasional dashes of hip hop drumming to the musical mix, so that a contemporary edginess is skilfully played off against the tango's intrinsic plaintive wistfulness, and one piece, 'Straw Dogs', is in composer Taylor's words, 'the result of leafing through Dave Liebman's book on chromaticism in jazz whilst being locked away in a shed in order to write music for a tango dance show'.

The result of all this open-mindedness could have been mere magpie borrowing of random glitter, but Tango Siempre (see also their excellent 2007 album Tangents) are so thoroughly immersed in their chosen medium that anything they play, whether it's inspired by the sound of a southern Italian funeral matching band ('Il Segreto') or by the dark night of the soul ('Only Human'), emerges as completely natural.

Interspersed with the odd snatch of Piazzolla himself explaining his attraction to nuevo tango, this is compelling music, often dark, even brooding, but shot through with passion and bursts of exhilaration. Recommended.